I will try getting a gH, kH test kit this week and see what readings I get, tested the water tonight after using pH up yesterday and have a reading of around 6.5/6.6 up from 6.2 yesterday after the addition of pH up. Tap water 7.2, water in my 300l tank is 7.0, tank reading in my 3rd tank is 6.6

Barbs seem to flicking against the gravel less tonight. I did notice that the golden barbs that i added a couple of weeks ago from one of my other tanks were the most affected fish in the tank, the existing fish didn't seem as bothered by low pH.

The change in ph has more than likely burned their gills.

Does your lfs test the water for free? Some here do, some don't. At least we will all know straight away.

Frenchy

lfs tests for nitrites/nitrates/ammonia not sure on gH, kH, will try and pick up a kit tomorrow and find out. In the mean time i shouldn't raise the pH anymore?

May as well wait.

Unless you plan on doing another little water change. Raising the ph should only be done when doing a water change.

Frenchy

well i bought a carbonate hardness test kit today to find out the KH of the tank, it seems to be around 5-6 degrees of hardness, what would be the optimal hardness i should aim for? I also bought some coral chips which i will be adding to the canister filter to try and stabilise the pH. Should i wait till i do a water change before adding the coral chips to the filter? Also does the coral chips itself raise the pH or just stabilise it? In which case should I wait until the ph drops again before adding the chips (as at the moment it is at around 7.2) or should I add the chips now?

Only fish people talk in degrees hardness which is "German speak". Christchurch water is about 45ppm hardness expressed as calcium carbonate which is about 2.2 deg. so at 5-6 deg (110PPM) your hardness has increased quite a bit. Christchurch water has a pH of about 7.2-7.4 so it has dropped quite a bit. Your goldfish are heavy feeders and heavy polluters and your filtration will generally take out the lumps and harbour bacteria usefull in the nitrogen cycle. It generally will not alter pH or hardness and these changes are arising in my view from the load on the water from feeding and excrement. Change the water and you will change these two factors or spend a fortune on chemicals and keep the fish shops and yourself very busy. One of my tanks has 3 large chunks of marble in it and I doubt that it increases the hardness by much. There are many forms of calcium carbonate and they are all but insoluble except in acid conditions. If you change the water you will not need to buffer it and you will raise the pH again. 6.2 is not very acid--- Coca Cola is about 4.6 if remember correctly.

Just out of curiosity how much did you spend on test kits? I have been breeding fish and aquatic plants for over 30 years and have never owned one although I have desighned and built hardness and pH testing kits for sale.

Hi Alan

KH kit was $15 from organism, they also had Gh/Kh kits whih were $35 i think.

Two of the largest fish, a comet and blackmoor I sold last week so hopefully that should reduce the fish load a bit. I'd rather not use lots of chemicals as well (due to the costs and also i don't like adding chemicals willy-nilly), so i'll monitor the pH over the next few weeks without adding the coral chips and see how it goes. coral chips were only $5, so at least they were cheap (even if they don't help .

have to admit that is less than I thought it might be. Water changes are good because they remove the waste products that bring about these changes and also the excess minerals that cause algae problems. A 50% water change will not cause any problems if you make the replacement water about the same temperature as that coming out. If you do it weekly it will prevent shock because the pH and hardness will not have time to alter too much. We are blessed in Christchurch because we live on the waka and have untreated artesian water to make water changes easier. Forget the pineapple chunks---thats good enough for me. Good luck.

Do you use a gravel vac?

Frenchy

yes gravel vac every time I water change, which is fortnightly, and i don't seem to be getting an excessive amount of waste out, so the cleaning seems sufficient. The woods has definitely reduced the aount of leaching, so i'm hoping the pH may start to stabilise soon.