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First off, I am not advocating changing your ph level for any reason other than a necessity... ie you have fish or plants that REQUIRE it to survive, most fish WILL acclimate to a good range of ph anywhere from 6 to 8.
What you need to understand first is what affects ph in your water... the main thing is the waters buffering capacity, this means your waters hardness (mineral content) there seems to be a lot of confusion that a low pH means soft water and a high pH means hard water.. this is NOT true. Hard water means a high buffering capacity (mineral content), and in reverse low buffering capacity means soft water. How does this affect pH?, simple if you have hard water the buffering capacity of the water is going to keep your pH HIGH... if you have soft water then there are less buffers and your pH will be LOW. Now, as far as using chemicals to LOWER your pH... this does not work with hard water, because you still have a high buffering capacity, so what happens is your pH level drops because of the acids in the pH lowering addtives... but shortly after your pH is going to spike, usually all the way back up to where it was before because you have hard water. This is VERY hard on your fish and will almost certainly result in death if done repeatedly to counter the effects of the pH going back up.
There are a few ways to safely LOWER your pH
1. Use driftwood or peat moss in your tank, this will slowly release acids that lower your pH gradually, however with hard water you will have to replace the peat moss regularly or it will go back up... this also applies to driftwood as the tannic acid levels drop the pH will go back up, but most likely you are not going to keep replacing driftwood due to cost.
2. Use a mixture of distilled or R.O. (Reverse Osmosis) water to dilute your main water source.... this will reduce the buffering capacity (mineral content) of your water, thus your pH will drop as well. A word of caution on this method... you MUST keep a safe hardness level with this, you CANNOT use 100% distilled or R.O. water, this will make your pH very unstable because of the lack of buffering capacity. You ideally need a hardness test for GH and KH levels to make sure when you dilute your main water that it still has a sufficient buffering capacity to keep the pH stable.
3. If you use method 2 properly then you can further dial in your pH level with the use of driftwood, peat moss or even live plants. Now that your buffering capacity is lower it will be easier to adjust it to the exact level you want, but it can still be tricky because you will need to monitor the pH so that it doesn't drop too fast or too low.
EDIT: Please note that you should still take care when using peat moss, as I mentioned before, you will have some ph swings if you use it in the tank and don't monitor the ph levels frequently.... Sirdarksol mentions a safer alternative to using in tank peat moss in his post below, and thank you for the advice SDS =)
On to RAISING your pH
This is much simpler to do and most people don't even have this problem, simply adding crushed coral or certain rocks (such as limestone) that leach out minerals will raise your hardness and buffering capacity, which will result in a higher pH level. I do not recommend using pH raising products, these will cause pH swings much like the pH lowering products do.
I hope this helps everyone with better understanding hard water versus soft water and how it affects your pH levels.... also in closing keep in mind that regular weekly water changes and maintenance go a long way in keeping your pH level and buffering capacity stable!
What you need to understand first is what affects ph in your water... the main thing is the waters buffering capacity, this means your waters hardness (mineral content) there seems to be a lot of confusion that a low pH means soft water and a high pH means hard water.. this is NOT true. Hard water means a high buffering capacity (mineral content), and in reverse low buffering capacity means soft water. How does this affect pH?, simple if you have hard water the buffering capacity of the water is going to keep your pH HIGH... if you have soft water then there are less buffers and your pH will be LOW. Now, as far as using chemicals to LOWER your pH... this does not work with hard water, because you still have a high buffering capacity, so what happens is your pH level drops because of the acids in the pH lowering addtives... but shortly after your pH is going to spike, usually all the way back up to where it was before because you have hard water. This is VERY hard on your fish and will almost certainly result in death if done repeatedly to counter the effects of the pH going back up.
There are a few ways to safely LOWER your pH
1. Use driftwood or peat moss in your tank, this will slowly release acids that lower your pH gradually, however with hard water you will have to replace the peat moss regularly or it will go back up... this also applies to driftwood as the tannic acid levels drop the pH will go back up, but most likely you are not going to keep replacing driftwood due to cost.
2. Use a mixture of distilled or R.O. (Reverse Osmosis) water to dilute your main water source.... this will reduce the buffering capacity (mineral content) of your water, thus your pH will drop as well. A word of caution on this method... you MUST keep a safe hardness level with this, you CANNOT use 100% distilled or R.O. water, this will make your pH very unstable because of the lack of buffering capacity. You ideally need a hardness test for GH and KH levels to make sure when you dilute your main water that it still has a sufficient buffering capacity to keep the pH stable.
3. If you use method 2 properly then you can further dial in your pH level with the use of driftwood, peat moss or even live plants. Now that your buffering capacity is lower it will be easier to adjust it to the exact level you want, but it can still be tricky because you will need to monitor the pH so that it doesn't drop too fast or too low.
EDIT: Please note that you should still take care when using peat moss, as I mentioned before, you will have some ph swings if you use it in the tank and don't monitor the ph levels frequently.... Sirdarksol mentions a safer alternative to using in tank peat moss in his post below, and thank you for the advice SDS =)
On to RAISING your pH
This is much simpler to do and most people don't even have this problem, simply adding crushed coral or certain rocks (such as limestone) that leach out minerals will raise your hardness and buffering capacity, which will result in a higher pH level. I do not recommend using pH raising products, these will cause pH swings much like the pH lowering products do.
I hope this helps everyone with better understanding hard water versus soft water and how it affects your pH levels.... also in closing keep in mind that regular weekly water changes and maintenance go a long way in keeping your pH level and buffering capacity stable!
