pH dilemma....

On Thu, 23 Nov 2006 12:08:27 -0600, El Roberto wrote
(in article ):

Hey there, the saga continues...

I have had my 23 litre tank for 4 weeks now with one goldfish in it, and now
it seems to be fully cycled. There's a plant in there, the fish is extra
happy, and I've been adding bacteria every so often too.

Anyway, I've bought a heater and am now intent on getting rid of the
goldfish (tank's too small, I have found a bigger one for him) and want to
put some neons and platys in my tank. So far so good, however... every time
I take a sample of my aquarium water to the local aquarium shops (I've done
this with two of them so far), they tell me that my water's too alkaline for
tropical fish and I need to lower it.

So basically I was given a piece of wood that will apparently lower the pH
(don't know the name of it, but anyway...). However, I've been doing my own
pH tests and the readings are showing a pH of 7, which as far as I can see
is fine for tropical fish.

I'm starting to think that there's a problem with the water I'm taking out
of the aquarium: basically I've been using the gravel pump to fill a 300ml
Evian bottle before driving off to the aquarium, sometimes leaving the water
in there for a couple of hours before it gets tested. Could this have
affected it in transit? Am I doing something wrong here?

It's all a little confusing: needless to say I can't wait to get these fish
but I want the pH to be just right. As I've said in other posts my KH is
just about zero, the tap water here is very soft in comparison and thus the
buffering capacity isn't great.

Any suggestions? I don't want to have to wait for weeks / months for the
piece of wood to do its work - sounds a bit crazy, really.


Your shop is screwy. If your water is not too alkaline to drink, there are
fish you can keep in it. Platties love hard water.

-E