Switching to well water with lower ph.

[looney_trout]

My city water has almost no hardness and high ph (over 8 ). Test strips confirm this. Water report says they add sodium hydroxide (very high kh) to raise the ph. I'm in coastal Alabama

 I do have a well and want to switch over to that for the fish. I won't know til tomorrow how much lower the ph is on the well but it runs around 6.5 if I remember right. Pipe cracked over the winter during a freeze and just now fixed it with the weather warmed up enough.

Is my regular water changing schedule (25 percent or so once a week) fine for getting the fish used to a lower ph? Currently I'm keeping endlers, pristella tetras, cherry barbs, upside down cats, neons and ember tetras.

I'm only asking because all the fish I currently have have all been in 8+ ph for a long time (some 3 years) and curious if I should go slower or not.

[jwcarlson]

Your normal schedule should be fine.  Check your well water after aerating it overnight to see if the pH shifts. 

[looney_trout]

On 3/10/2023 at 10:05 PM, jwcarlson said:

Your normal schedule should be fine.  Check your well water after aerating it overnight to see if the pH shifts. 

Thanks. I know test strips aren't the most accurate but the colors on the strips correspond pretty spot on to what the water report says. Tap water after 2 days with an air stone doesn't shift the ph with how high my kh is.

 

Everything I like to keep plant and fish wise all really do want a lower ph. New world cichlids (my favorite fish) have never really lived very long in my tap water and same with a lot of plants despite having decent nutrient levels and adequate to even higher light. Only thing I can think of is the whacky tap water I have may be a factor. Fish and plants are adaptable but it's worth a shot. And I only plan on doing this on 2 tanks to start with before I go all out on all 5 (soon to be 8 haha).

[jwcarlson]

My tap water is 8.3 after aged, 7.0 fresh out of the tap.  Very hard 18-20 degrees for both GH and KH, but apparently a lot of CO2 dissolved within.  

I just meant that you should also do the aging test to your well water.  If what you said about tap water above is your well water than it sounds like you are in good shape! 

As long as you change it down slowly and it remains stable, you should be good to go.  When I intro fish I plop and drop, but I am always going up.  When getting my apistogrammas into breeding conditions I went from straight tap (described above) and did a 75% water change with straight RO they were absolutely fine. I know discus breeders who do the same with theirs.  

[gardenman]

There are differences in wells. A deep well typically delivers pretty stable water quality while a shallower well can lead to some pretty wild fluctuations. If you've got a deep well, odds are your water from the well will remain pretty stable. If you've got a shallow well (mine was about twelve feet deep) you can expect some pretty big swings in water chemistry. If you've got a shallow well, frequent testing is advised.

I might go slower on the water changes as long as the parameters allowed it as going from 8+ to 6.5 is a pretty big swing. A 25% change weekly might be a tad stressful for the fish. Smaller, more frequent changes might be safer. (5% every other day?)

[Mmiller2001]

I would ignore pH and solely focus on GH and KH. There's no reason to age water when testing those parameters and when you get GH and KH into the position you want them, pH will fall into a desired position. 

[DeadStang]

On 3/11/2023 at 4:59 AM, gardenman said:

There are differences in wells. A deep well typically delivers pretty stable water quality while a shallower well can lead to some pretty wild fluctuations. If you've got a deep well, odds are your water from the well will remain pretty stable. If you've got a shallow well (mine was about twelve feet deep) you can expect some pretty big swings in water chemistry. If you've got a shallow well, frequent testing is advised.

I might go slower on the water changes as long as the parameters allowed it as going from 8+ to 6.5 is a pretty big swing. A 25% change weekly might be a tad stressful for the fish. Smaller, more frequent changes might be safer. (5% every other day?)

This is very interesting to me! I have a shallow well (28' deep) that runs with 40ppm nitrates from the tap and the pH changes, from 6.4 - 7, depending upon the time of year (higher last fall, now lower since the rains have come over winter). The water sits overnight and off-gases to around 8, which is around what my tanks run (7.6-8, depending on which test I run high or low pH). I have had to deal with various water parameter issues and ich Tx with large (50%) water changes in the past few months. Some of my ich Tx failure(s) may have been that I have fluctuated the pH fairly dramatically with a 50% water change every day while treating and adding to the stress of the sick fish, I don't know.

But now that I am not currently having problems, I do a 25% water change weekly and the mixing of lower tap pH with higher tank pH doesn't seem to be a problem. Long way of saying, run a bucket of water, let it sit for 12+ hours, then test the well water pH and see what you've got, but the smaller pH water mixing doesn't seem to be a big problem.

[looney_trout]

On 3/11/2023 at 5:55 AM, jwcarlson said:

My tap water is 8.3 after aged, 7.0 fresh out of the tap.  Very hard 18-20 degrees for both GH and KH, but apparently a lot of CO2 dissolved within.  

I just meant that you should also do the aging test to your well water.  If what you said about tap water above is your well water than it sounds like you are in good shape! 

As long as you change it down slowly and it remains stable, you should be good to go.  When I intro fish I plop and drop, but I am always going up.  When getting my apistogrammas into breeding conditions I went from straight tap (described above) and did a 75% water change with straight RO they were absolutely fine. I know discus breeders who do the same with theirs.  

Ok cool. good to know. got a sample bubbling away and will test tomorrow to see what the results look like. I'm curious about trying to breed some fish like apistos and everything I read says high ph they either won't breed or the hatch is super low to none.

Edited March 11, 2023 by looney_trout

[looney_trout]

On 3/11/2023 at 6:59 AM, gardenman said:

There are differences in wells. A deep well typically delivers pretty stable water quality while a shallower well can lead to some pretty wild fluctuations. If you've got a deep well, odds are your water from the well will remain pretty stable. If you've got a shallow well (mine was about twelve feet deep) you can expect some pretty big swings in water chemistry. If you've got a shallow well, frequent testing is advised.

I might go slower on the water changes as long as the parameters allowed it as going from 8+ to 6.5 is a pretty big swing. A 25% change weekly might be a tad stressful for the fish. Smaller, more frequent changes might be safer. (5% every other day?)

I can't find the paperwork on the well that said how deep it was. I want to say it was about 30 feet which is assume is still considered shallow.  Good to know that I should be testing more often if I want to go this route. I have a 3g cube (no fish, just snails and plants) that's my tinker tank and will actually go ahead later and change out the water to the well to see what happens over a couple weeks before I start doing anything to the tanks with fish.

On 3/11/2023 at 7:59 AM, Mmiller2001 said:

I would ignore pH and solely focus on GH and KH. There's no reason to age water when testing those parameters and when you get GH and KH into the position you want them, pH will fall into a desired position. 

I did do a test a little while ago straight out of the spigot after letting it run for a few minutes since it hasn't been ran in months. little to no gh and kh which isn't surprising to me being on the gulf coast. Going to have to add some crushed coral or something it looks like. Ph was around 6.5. got some aerating right now to see what happens overnight.

[Mmiller2001]

Sounds like awesome water from the tap. Check the TDS and see what it is. If it's below 85, you have golden water 

[looney_trout]

On 3/11/2023 at 6:54 PM, Mmiller2001 said:

Sounds like awesome water from the tap. Check the TDS and see what it is. If it's below 85, you have golden water 

Yeah after seeing corey's video recently about how to actually use a TDS meter properly, I want one. 

I'm pretty stoked if my well water is actually good. I'm not burned so much as bored and this definitely brings my interest back. All my tanks are cookie cutters (i don't toss plants when I thin them out) and I want to do them all different. Otherwise I should probably take some down. When I get closer to at least being able to redo the lights and substrate on my 45, I was going to start a journal of all my tanks. I even have a 40b and 20L I bought 2 years ago sitting with the aqeuon cardboard still attached I haven't got to yet.

[Mmiller2001]

On 3/11/2023 at 10:02 PM, looney_trout said:

Yeah after seeing corey's video recently about how to actually use a TDS meter properly, I want one. 

I'm pretty stoked if my well water is actually good. I'm not burned so much as bored and this definitely brings my interest back. All my tanks are cookie cutters (i don't toss plants when I thin them out) and I want to do them all different. Otherwise I should probably take some down. When I get closer to at least being able to redo the lights and substrate on my 45, I was going to start a journal of all my tanks. I even have a 40b and 20L I bought 2 years ago sitting with the aqeuon cardboard still attached I haven't got to yet.

That's what I'm doing. I bought a 120 and selling my 40 and 75. Just one tank and a 20 QT. I'm tired of multi tank maintenance.