purpledantastic

I'm not sure what an off gas test is but the pH was still 7.8 when I tested the hardness. I should have posted that earlier. The tank has been running for a few weeks.

I finally got my GH/KH test kit. KH was good at 5 degrees but GH was super high12 degrees. Does that seem like a problem? The results seemed odd but I tested it twice and tested some other tanks too and it was consistent. The seller said their current tank is around 7.5pH, but I didn't ask them any questions about water hardness.

@Tony s Thanks! I heard that it was easier for fish to adapt to hard water, I just wasn't sure if mine was hard...This is helpful. I'm learning so much here!

Thanks for your response. It looks like I need to get a reliable test kit for gh and kh then. I did just measure it with the test strips again (3 times) and got 180 for GH and 120 for KH. I compared that to my city's current water report which had things a bit lower at GH of 125 and KH of 103. I just reread the ACO post about ph, gh, and kh and it looks like I'm in a good hardness range for the most part, but I'm not sure why ph wouldn't matter? I know it's more important to have stable parameters than chase ph so my goal would be to try to slowly acclimate them to my higher ph, not to try to maintain a lower ph for the long haul. I've been looking into peat moss or sphagnum moss or mixing in RODI water as a more natural option. But if ph really isn't important then even better - I'd just like to understand it a bit more.

That's a great idea - thanks!

Hi all - I just ordered some wild caught habrosus and I'm not sure if I need to do anything special to acclimate them for my pH, which is around 7.8-8.0. I am not sure what my water hardness is - I only have test strips for that and those results seem unreliable (it shows all the way high on GH and KH, but it also says my pH is 6.5). I looked up my city's water report and it said the hardness was between 80-130 mg/l. The little cories will have a tank to themselves, so I thought about using something like Seachem Neutral Regulator to lower the pH initially, and then phasing that out/raising the pH back to my "normal" through small water changes. Do I need to do that or will they be ok?