How do I lower the pH in my fish tank?

Question

My fish tank is having problems. The pH is going to over 7.6, and my fish are starting to die. I am putting in pH stabilizers to keep it at 7.0, and it still goes up after a few weeks. Once it goes up, I can't get it to go down without actually changing all the water, or if the pH stuff brings it down, it doesn't keep it down for long. It seems like I am always having problems witht the pH. What can I do?

Answer 1

Use distilled water (pH=7.0) to change the water in your tank.  Your tap water is probably "hard" meaning it has a lot of dissolved minerals in it; hard water also has a high pH.  The minerals in your water make the pH stabilizers less effective.  Start changing about 33% of the water every week with distilled water and the pH will eventually get to 7.  It is stressful for the fish to change out more than 33% of the water at one time.

Answer 2

Check the pH of the water you are using.  You should be doing 25% water changes weekly just as regular maintenance anyway.  Messing around with pH is never good because it just doesn't stay put.  It's much healthier for your tank to have a stable pH than try to get it to be exactly 7.

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Answer 3

Do a full water change and put AmQuel and NovaAqua water cleansers you water. When you do the water change be shore to churn the gravel to get all of there waste up out of the tank.You should do a watter change every 2 weeks,and do about 10% of it

Answer 4

Purchase driftwood and peat moss. Purchase pH decrease, the TopFin brand. make a 10% water change and replace with distilled water that has been treated with StressZyme.

Answer 5

What is the ph of your tap water? You need to do water changes more often than every few weeks, Trying to adjust ph with chemicals is a waste, does more harm to fish than helping them.

Answer 6

use driftwood or peatmoss

Answer 7

Ignore the pH. A stable but high pH is safer than one that fluctuates so stop adding chemicals. Your fish are more likely to die from them than from a high pH.

You should be doing a weekly water change anyway but if the pH in the tank is higher than water from the tap ( test a sample of tap water that has stood overnight) you need to check your gravel or rocks or other decor in case you have something raising the pH.

You should really invest in a master test kit and monitor the GH & KH before you consider altering water chemistry but the best way to lower pH is by mixing RO water with tapwater to lower dissolved solids.