Ph Adjustments

[PSi4EVA]

Hi,

Dad brought me home some ph up and down solutions from his work yesterday so I could make the appropriate adjustments for a new quarintine tank I bought to house the Cichlid until I can get rid of it. I believe they were used for hydroponics.

The active ingrediant in the

Ph Down is : Phosphoric Acid 850g/L

and the

Ph Up is : Potassium Hydroxide 400g/L

Attached is a pic of the bottles.

If someone could please check on their bottles and advise whether this stuff is correct, it would be muchly appreciated. I do not have a Ph tester, but I do know our tank water is a perfect 7.0 Neutral and I would be targeting 8.0 for the Cichlid. The new tank only has a corner filter, heater and airstone. No gravel, sand or anything else.

Cheers,

Scott

[fishly]

Hi PSi4EVA,

I would suggest you not to use the chemical, instead why don't you use bicarbonate to increase the KH and PH. You can buy this from any supermarket.

And if you want to decrease the PH, when you do partial water changes, you boil the tap water first and then cool it down. After that add this water into your fish tank.

And it would be great if you buy some substrate which have buffering capability, such as crushed marble, crushed coral, and black gravel. The crushed marble and black gravel won't cost a lot.

And I would suggest you to buy the PH tester as well. It is very important to have test kits to test your water condition.

Hopefully it might help you.

[PSi4EVA]

Hi fishly,

Thankyou for your reply. I might try the bicarbonate, is that (Bi-carb of Soda ?). Then again I'll only have the cichlid for a few more days so I might just see how it goes.

Thanks anyway, I'll let you know what happens

Cheers,

Scott

p.s The Ph kits on the way

[fishly]

It is bicarb of soda, or sometimes people called baking soda. Make sure don't add too much. If I were you, I will add 1tbs per day. If you don't have the test kit, go to your LFS and ask for water test. It is free of charge. Or if you haven't got one, I do have one. It is made by serra.

Good luck.

[PHL]

Are the acid buffers sold acceptable? Unfortunately my black gravel raises the kH and pH or my tap water, but would like to drop the pH and kH for characins.

[YeW]

Hi Guys -

Firstly, not all cichlids require pH 8.0 (some are very happy in pH 4.0). What is this fish.

Secondly - I would not advocate using any chemicals to raise the pH (although bicarb would be acceptable). If you throw in some clean oyster shells (say 10 or so) they should be more than enough to buffer the pH above 7.8.

Thirdly - remember pH is a log scale. That means the 8 is TEN times more alkaline than 7 and 9 is 100 times more alkaline than 7 etc. The biological result of this is if you change the pH on a fish too quickly - it cannot cope with the difference and will often die trying.

[YeW]

PHL -

Change your gravel. Otherwise it will never work. You cannot fight the buffering capacity of your gravel using pH down.

.

[PHL]

Change your gravel. Otherwise it will never work. You cannot fight the buffering capacity of your gravel using pH down.

Seachem advocates using pH Up and pH Down in combination to 'fix' your pH at a certain level, hence I my thoughts that the gravel will act much like pH Up, and by using pH Down, I can attempt to get the pH to a level the fish would prefer.

[YeW]

Poe -

Fish like stable water chemistry - my advice is to change your gravel.

Adding pH altering chemicals to move the pH around when your gravel is "pushing" the water chemistry isn't a good idea in my book.

[reesy1]

I agree with YEW ive said in another post your aquarium will find its natural ph level dont fight it just get suitable residents for your water conditions, most fish adapt very well to ph levels outside there natural habitat but dont whatever you do play chemist and try to change your ph with chemicals it will be temporary and probably cost you a few if not all your fish.