ER9

i have been buying reverse osmosis (soft) water from a local fish store to help lower the pH in my tank. i went to get more today and there was a new kid there. when i walked in with my jug he asked me hard or soft water. i said soft for ffresh water, paid and left.

i started adding it to my tank tonight and noticed it looked funny when i was adding it to my tank. there was distortion that i can best describe what heat shimmer looks like rising off hot pavement. that type of distortion was present from the newly added water as i poured it in. i didnt think anything of it and added about two gallons when i decided to taste the water in the jug and it tasted very salty.

being new to this i cant say if thats what rev. osmosis softened water tastes like so i assumed it was salt water, i immediately stopped adding it, drained my tank 50-75% of its water and added pure tap water to try and dilute it if thats what it was.

now my fish are acting fairly erratic...very jerky, nervous type of swimming. they are definately not acting normal but it could have been from all the stress of intrusion as well....not sure.

is there signs of salt poisoning if any? would my fish just immediately die? after the amount of water i removed i'm assuming its a very light brackish water if in fact it was salt water i added. is there ways to neutralize salt beside replacing water?

would you recomend draining even more water? also i noticed the fish seem to keep towards the top of the tank now when they were very much bottom swimmers before.....

thanks for any help....hope i didnt just doom my fish.

susitna-flower

OMG, your poor fish.

The biggest problem here is that 7.5 ph is NOT high enough for you to be messing with.

When you did your big change to try to get the salt out were you VERY careful to get the temperature the same as the tank water?

Did you use dechlorinater?

The huge ph change from your RO water to your tap water is VERY stressful.

Most fish can adapt to your home ph levels. I would stop trying to change it, that just puts more of your $$$ in the fish store pocket, with lots of room for error, as happened today.

It does sound like your fish are having problems, but at this point there really isn't much you can do. Tomorrow am I would do another 25% change.

Your tank cycle needs close monitoring. Please post tomorrow what your test levels are.
ammonia?
nitrite?
nitrate?
ph

By the way, I would take the jug back to the store and let them know what happened, so they can hopefully help their employee know not to do it again in the future.

ER9

thank you susintna....i was very careful to try and match the temperature...i did not actaully put a thermometer in the new water but got it very close just from touch. i must have been very close because the thermometer in the tank only dropped 2 degrees the entire time. also after i was done i used about a half a cap full of Prime.

i'm guessing i replaced about 20-25 gallons of a 30 gallon tank.

the good news is my fish are getting back to normal...(fingers crossed) i think i got lucky. theres just one danio left that seems extremely stressed. he will not stop pacing back and forth across the back glass of the tank. i will have to wait and see and replace another 25% as you suggsted tomorrow.

i will also post chemical levels as well. also thanks for the advice on the pH. you are the second person that suggested i leave it be and i think i'm going to take the advice. in my inexperience i assumed i just had to get it closer to 7.0 for the health of my fish and the fact i really wanted to add a few tetras. i might have to live with the fact i cant have tetras because i'm not growing fond of buying special water all the time...especially after today.

COBettaCouple

I'd just keep doing water changes and treat the water with Prime, NovAqua+, VitaChem or Fish Protector. Any of those could help. You'll want to just get the salinity lowered and give the fish protection from what effects they might feel.

Do you have an airstone running? If not, I'd recommend running some more aeration in the tank.

ER9

thanks...will do. yeah i have a single 6" airstone going full blast (only thing getting air from the pump)

i will add that these white cloud minnows are really tough fish....wow they took it much better than the danios. they are actually playing again. they are having fun playing in the filter overflow chasing each other around so thats a good sign.

COBettaCouple

yea, I think you're acting quick and they'll make it.

ER9

thanks for all the help. good news is everything is back to normal and everyone looks very healthy. even that last stressed danio is playing again. he loves to assault my test bottles when i try to fill them with water. he was at it again this morning.

all my readings look good and have dropped from what they were from before my water change last night. considering how much water i changed i guess thats to be expected. i will monitor them twice a day until i'm through the nitrogen cycle.

PH steady 7.6
NH .15 (down from .50)
NO2 .25 (down from .50)
NO3 0.0 (down from 5.0)

mlinden84

I'm glad everyone is ok!

I used to worry about changing by pH to 7.0 all the time (added chemicals to try to change it). Now I don't bother, my fish are fine with it (it's 7.9 out of the tap) I just have to be careful when I add new fish, as I have different water pH then the fish stores around here do.
Also, if you want a way to lower it, you can always add some driftwood. It helps to lower pH in tanks (and things such as limestone rock will raise the pH)