![]() ![]() Where I grew up there were two main sources of water a glacial moraine aquifer where the water was insanely hard (hardness means "lots of dissolved CaCO 3" and makes pH very stable) and treated river water. Note that the chemistry of your tap water can change considerably over time depending on where you live and what local conditions are like. The pH meter was in fact broken, the pH was very very high, not low at all, and I ended up bleaching some fish to death. ![]() And then I realized wait a minute, there is no process that should be making that much acid that quickly in the tank. One day it read that the pH was low, so I put a little NaOH in the tank. A sad story: I got an electronic pH meter with my tank and used it to check pH for many years. I recommend measuring pH with a chemical indicator. (The OH - combines with free hydrogen ions to form H 2O and thereby lessens the amount of free hydrogen ions very quickly.) However, see the next point. (Incidentally, Na 2CO 3 is what NaHCO 3 turns into when you bake it it's what's left in the cake after the baking soda produces carbon dioxide.) Sodium hydroxide - NaOH - will also raise pH quickly. ![]() Given what you know from my first point, you should be able to figure out why that is. Washing soda - Na 2CO 3 - will raise the pH of an overly acidic tank faster than baking soda will. No matter what you do, it tries to get back to normal. If you stretch a string, it tries to get back to normal. Essentially it acts like a spring - if you compress a spring it tries to get back to normal. It is a "buffer", meaning that it will not only bring low-pH tanks back towards neutral, but it also resists the water becoming too basic as well. Your 30 litre tank will be a lot more finicky than a bigger tank.īaking soda - NaHCO 3 - is a great addition to a tank if you're having pH problems. Small tanks are considerably harder to keep in pH balance than large tanks because small changes have a relatively larger effect. Water with a pH of 5.5 has one hydrogen per ~310 000 water molecules so it is ~31 times more acidic than pure water. Slightly basic water has ten times fewer hydrogens, so one per 100 000 000, note there are 8 zeros. Slightly acidic water has ten times as much hydrogen, so one per 1 000 000 water. Pure water has one hydrogen per 10 000 000 water molecules note there are 7 zeros. A precise definition of pH is unnecessary a good way to think of it is that pH measures the amount of free hydrogen atoms in the water. If you don't have a working understanding of pH, it is helpful to read up on it. ![]() Some additional advice that I learned the hard way after many years of owning 80 and 300 litre freshwater tanks: Is this frequency of water changing typical of a tank this size, is the acidic pH acceptable for most fish, and if not, is there anything I can do to try and keep a healthy pH for longer? Had I realized I'd need to changing the water more than once a week, I'm not sure I'd have agreed to having fish. One fish did develop what looked like a red sore spot but this has receded since we started changing the water more often. I'm not sure if this is bad for the fish or not, but since owning the fish, two have died (there were six originally), although this could have been old age. However within 2-3 days the pH has fallen to 5.5-6. The water out of the tap is about pH 7, and remains pH 7 after these are added. We treat tap water with an additive that makes it "safe for fish" and another that's supposed to retain pH balance. We've discovered that the water becomes acidic very quickly after a water change. We try and feed them only a minimal amount, as suggested by the previous owner. It's currently got 4 small (platy size) fish in it. I don't know what size the tank is precisely, but measuring water in and out suggests 25-30 liters. They had kept fish for many years without trouble, and told us that they changed the water every 2-3 weeks, and the filter cartridge every 2 months. A few months ago, we took over ownership of a small fish tank (with fish) from their existing owner. ![]()
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