GuppyTeacher

Our water has alot of calcium in it. The calcium plugs up everything. Especially coffee makers. I am constantly running vinegar through them so I can hopefully get them to last a year. Now the real problem that I see for my fish is that the pH of the water tests between 8.0 to 8.2 which is on the high side for guppies. Is there a natural way I can help to bring the pH down to a more tolerable level for them? Or will they acclimate to the higher pH?

Tom

You could add some natural peat moss to the filter. It will lower the pH and will soften the water at the same time. Plus also release tannins into the water. There is another way of getting rid of Ca in the aquarium, but I can't seem to think of it at the moment.
Tom

SereneReyn

driftwood will help a little with the PH too.

Jizzy

As long as the pH is stable, I'm sure they would do fine. My betta and cories do o.k. in my pH.

Blub

Guppys can go happily in pH's like yours. What you want to achieve is a stable pH - obviously an extreme pH (Lets say, 2.0) would not be good, but 8 - 8.2 should be good for Gups.

sirdarksol

I have around the same pH, and have had little problems with it. Driftwood will likely do nothing to your pH, as the tannins it releases have to first burn through all of your buffers (of which there are many in water like yours and mine) before actually affecting the pH. Likewise, you would need to cram a lot of peat into your filter in order to lower the pH.

From what I've seen, the three methods of lowering pH in water like ours are:
Use RO or Distilled water to balance things out a bit.
Use rainwater to balance things out a bit.
Fill a barrel with water, drop an airstone and a pillowcase of peat in, and let it aerate for a week.