Soft Water

[somnio]

I have run into a small issue, I use well water for my fish and it is very soft has low alkilinity and has a Ph over 8 over the past year I have had some loss and my tanks are looking a little barren and would like to add some new fish but everything I have tried to add has died. My long winded question is how I can make my water harder increase my alkilinity and lower my Ph?

[jvision]

Carbonic acid would be ideal - it would lower your pH and increase alkalinity. You can make carbonic acid with CO2, but it bubbles off quite easily with turbulence. Baking soda will increase your alkalinity, but it buffers around pH 8, so it won't help your pH problem.

Of course, if you're keeping Rift Lake cichlids, then the pH isn't a problem at all. Add some crushed coral, or oyster shells and it will increase your hardness and alkalinity. If you're keeping blackwater fish like many fish from South America, then all you have to do is add some acid to reduce your pH.

[somnio]

I was thinking more tropical fish. This is what I have in my tank right now a bichir eel, a bolivian ram, adonious pleco,2 synodontsis ( I think lace) and its a 50 gal tank. If I put any cichlids in there I imagine they would kill what I have..

[rayfong]

The other question is what are you doing when you add fish? Are you just floating the bag and then transferring the fish into the tank or are you slowly adding tank water into the bag. I have had success acclimating fish from Vancouver where the water is very soft and acidic compared to Edmonton. It takes me at least an hour to do it though but it can be done.

If you were to add rift lake cichlids the only fish that you have that might have problems would be the bolivian ram, the others can hold their own against cichlids.

[somnio]

I always drip my fish and have had lots of success in the past adding fish... I would also worry about my bichir eel its kinda a wimp I've had small tetra's I'm the tank and it leaves them alone...ill have to think about it

[jvision]

You can buffer your KH and GH a bit with some crushed oyster shell (usually in the bird section of pet stores), and lower the pH with a strong acid. You can get HCl at pool supply stores. I've also used Seachem Acid Buffer, but it's more expensive per volume than what you'll find at a pool store.

[BooUrns!]

I'm curious as to what effect the Seachem product has on the water? I've experimented with it and have seen the ph drop but when I tried the treated water on a tank, the inhabitants didn't react very well (RCS). They seemed to be paralyzed. Only when I moved the shrimp to another tank did they return to normal behavior but it took a few hours.

This put me off trying treated water with any other tanks and I just went back to using RO water.

Any idea what went wrong?

[jvision]

I've only used AB with SA cichlids. When I did a WC and added AB, the angels, rams and apistos would spawn w/in days. There is quite a bit of anecdotal evidence out there saying Prime, Excel and other Seachem products had adverse affects on shrimp, but I've never seen anything bad on fish or more hardy shrimp like Cherry and Green.