Best Spring Water?

[californiabaeta]

Hi everyone!

I'm currently struggling with keeping a stable pH level in my 5g tank. I have three guppies and two amano shrimp. My house is on filtered water so it's measuring 0 gh and 6 kh. Out of tap, I'm measuring at a pH of 7.6 but after I added the guppies, it's dipped to 6.0 after a few days! I've been doing 20% water changes everyday to try and keep the pH up. My cousin (who's given me the guppies) recommends that I swap out my water for bottled spring water (he uses Crystal geyser), however, a lot of what I'm reading online don't highly recommend bottled spring water, and for those that do, don't recommend any specific brand.

I'm wondering if there's anyone out there who have experience using bottled spring water and if so, what do you use? I don't mind price so as long as they're good for my fishes. :)

[Ben Ellison]

Ok here is my thoughts,

First the reason your PH is hard to keep up is the lack of buffer in your water. Other then that there is nothing wrong with your water that cant be fixed. You could try wonder shells. Also a lot of times your exterior house isn't filtered if the house is. Also there is Equilibrium or Salty shrimp.

Edited September 30, 2020 by Ben Ellison

[Andy's Fish Den]

I would use wonder shell as suggested above, or get some crushed coral and throw some in there. 

[Dana G]

I live in Texas and had this problem. I use Crystal Geyser spring water. Ph is 7 in every bottle consistently. It only costs about a $1/ gallon depending on where you go. I had a hard time getting my water parameters right using tap water, dechlorinator, and ph buffers. My city puts a chemical in the water to keep the ph high and no matter what I did I couldn't get ph to stay at 7 until I started using the bottled water. Hope that helps you.

[Tami]

I too use bottled water (walmart purified water) but mix it with treated tap water from work since there are no buffers in the purified water (GH/KH).  I have a great formula that works great BUT I want a 55 gal tank and can't imagine doing this with twice as much water.

Just test the water you use: spring and purified are different and I have found spring water to test different based on brands