Where I used to live the pH was between 8 and 9, but very stable.
This was mostly due to "Carbonate hardness"
The secret for me to have happy fish was to forget about the pH reading, and
to concentrate on other aspects of water chemistry (ammonia, nitrate,
nitrate, chlorine, chloramine, DOCs and TDS) that I could influence. (also,
temp and amount of light)
MOST fish will get used to any reasonable pH
Ammonia - from fish waste and rotting food it very toxic - more toxic at
higher temperatures
Nitrate / nitrite, - normal bacterial products from the breakdown of
ammonia. not as toxic as ammonia
The best way to remove these are regular partial water changes and fast
growing live plants.
chlorine / chloramine - these are in "city water" to kill bacteria.
Chlorine will evaporate over time. Chloramine won't.
The best way to remove these are regular partial water changes and good
circulation of your water
DOCs and TDS
Dissolved Organic Compounds are usually fish and bacterial waste products
that have a special chemistry and dissolve in water rather than floating on
the top (like oil) or sinking to the bottom (like indol, a main component of
poop)
The best way to remove these are regular partial water changes and
regular gravel vacuuming.
TDS is Total Dissolved Solutes - I don;t know enough to give intelligent
comment on this
DYAWC (Do Yet Another Water Change) is my first answer to ALMOST ANY
AQUARIUM PROBLEM
You can fight with your pH Best case is to leave it constant rather than
fighting with it.
"Craig" -DONTEMAIL wrote in message
...
sandy, a right schotish name, lol.
as i see it (and im sure we discussed on cichlidfish) fish will ajust to
the water chemestry they are brought up in. any thoughts on this?
i realise that it is hardly ideal, and will yeild strange results during
breeding but if its just a simple case of keeping the fish, then it isnt
that great an issue.
my local water is pretty hard, (by all accounts, never tested it, its
jsut known) and its rerally hard to grow plants in it, but ive kept and
bred many fish, including discus when i was younger and had no idea
about chemstry and things
Craig
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