Best way to manipulate H20?

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SilverSurfer
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Best way to manipulate H20?

Post by SilverSurfer »

I am acquiring a dozen 2" zebra's on sunday. Right now my ph is 8.4, hard water.

They are being kept in 7.1 ph water. What would be the best way do you think to adjust the water?

My parents home, have a water softener, etc. water is soft, would that mean more/less ph would be around 7.0?

I have hard water being in apt. and WI with higher levels of ph...

Or what would you suggest?

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Alistair
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Post by Alistair »

I wouldn't use water from a domestic softener unit. it is fine for humans to drink but would be detrimental to fish as it exchanges the calcium ions for sodium ions and this will effect the balance of ipotasium and sodium ions in the fish. Best to stick to RO water or water from an aquarium de-ionisation unit, to which you will need to add back some of the salts present naturally (either propriety additive or add some of the tap water back) to ensure the water is correctly buffered and stabillised.

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Post by AndyAps.com »

HI, I hate to say this and am not trying to spark an arguement but if your getting Zebra's on sunday and are only just thinking about how to lower the PH of your water.....................oh dear!
You ideally need to have a tank set up with a stable PH for a few weeks not only for the PH but for the filters (although filters from another tank can be transfered)
That said, I would suggest you buy a small RO unit, You can get them now where you use them as needed i.e once a week, and then seal them so they dont dry out and damage and prcie has come down alot over the last year. You could then mix the RO water with some tap water to get your desired PH and TDS (mix this in a container not the tank)

Again sorry to doubt you but
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SilverSurfer
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Post by SilverSurfer »

Prolly just better to drip accumilate them to the tap water directly then you think? not that big of a ph change, am sure happens as well when ordering fish in and their ph is different just slowly accumilate them instead of messing with the water right now? just like a 25% water change with RO, rest tap........
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Post by AndyAps.com »

I drip accumulated my Zebras for over 4 hours to get them used to my PH from the PH they had been kept in, Although im not sure how Zebs would fair over the longterm at PH above 8? i have never kept them anywhere near this...........maybe someone else can comment.
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eklikewhoa
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Post by eklikewhoa »

If you can find a LFS that sells RO/DI water that would be a really good idea to go get some today and change some of the water so it settles by the time you get your zebras.....you do have a cycled tank ready for them right?

Do that as a quick fix now but I would start looking into either a RO/DI unit or a Softener filter or something. Just curious but what is the ph/kh out the tap vs. tap sitting for 24/48hrs?
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SilverSurfer
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Post by SilverSurfer »

I did some reasearch found people are keeping them around the 8.0-8.3 and breeding them here on this site..

and then just like other plecos, L333, l260 are kept in this high ph hard water, they do wc like 50% with RO water to drop TDS and PH, so assuming the tank must be able to handle it then, this tank been running for about 6months, that i plan to put them in. Have ordered two powersweep powerheads be in tomorrow for their current.

I am picking up test kits tonite, will begin getting some numbers to share. And do a 50%wc with RO water to see how greatly it drops the levels.

Time to break out microsoft excel i suppose!
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Alistair
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Post by Alistair »

firstly, there is a big difference in a pH of 7.1 and 8.4. pH is a logarithmic scale so for every 0.1 increase the change is 10 fold!

Secondly, you say you have had the tank set up for 6 months, have you had anything in there to keep the filters cycled. If not, you will probably have problems with ammonia and nitrite when you add the fish as there won't be the bugs present in the filter to cope with the fish waste!

Al.C
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