Is adjusting the PH of water changes a good idea?

So my tap water is extremely hard and the PH tends to be around 8.2
I have lots of driftwood and Indian almond leaves in my aquariums which is keeping the PH down to 7.5.
I was wondering if it's a bad idea to lower the PH of my fresh water with API PH down to around 7.5 to 8.0 so the PH doesn't jump as much after a water change?
My current water treatment involves adding 2 drops of Prime and 1 tbsp of salt per 5 gallons of water and aerating it for at least 12 hours. I was thinking I would adjust the PH as well to help maintain stable conditions in the aquarium.

P.S I know maintaining low therapeutic salt levels in the fresh water aquarium is controversial but I am rolling with the theory that it's a good idea (as recommended by Gerald Griffin) for now.
Edit: I just saw this thread got moved to the PH section which I hadn't seen before and the sticky threads answer my questions.

 

there's no point lowering pH without knowing the buffers ie KH of the water

the pH is simply a function of the buffers, so maintaining this buffer is what is important and you do not want to mess around and deplete it accidentally

 

there's no point lowering pH without knowing the buffers ie KH of the water

the pH is simply a function of the buffers, so maintaining this buffer is what is important and you do not want to mess around and deplete it accidentally

I wish I found this section before I posted. The stickies answered my question completely.

 

What fish are you trying to keep that need a lower ph? It may not really matter.
Why do you let the water sit for 12 hours? It is more ideal to add water that is the same as the tank, Is the tank water room temperature?
Are you monitoring the salt level of your tank with a hydrometer? There is no guarantee that you remove 50 % of the salt when you remove 50 % of the water, you may be reaching dangerous levels for your fish if you are not testing.

 

What fish are you trying to keep that need a lower ph? It may not really matter.
Why do you let the water sit for 12 hours? It is more ideal to add water that is the same as the tank, Is the tank water room temperature?
Are you monitoring the salt level of your tank with a hydrometer? There is no guarantee that you remove 50 % of the salt when you remove 50 % of the water, you may be reaching dangerous levels for your fish if you are not testinad

What fish are you trying to keep that need a lower ph? It may not really matter.
Why do you let the water sit for 12 hours? It is more ideal to add water that is the same as the tank, Is the tank water room temperature?
Are you monitoring the salt level of your tank with a hydrometer? There is no guarantee that you remove 50 % of the salt when you remove 50 % of the water, you may be reaching dangerous levels for your fish if you are not testing.

I have mystery snails, zebra danios, ghost shrimp, guppies, and a Kuhli loach.
The one I am worried about is the loach I believe all the rest don't mind the extremely hard water and high ph but I'm not so confident about the loach.
I siphon my water out in a 5 gallon buckets and then replace it with 5 gallon buckets of fresh water.. The target salt level is one tablespoon for 5 gallons although I've been putting just a little less than that. I will monitor my salt levels.
As far as why I set my water out overnight with a bubbler that's mostly to let the temperature come down a bit because our water this time of year is around 80 to 90° (and much warmer if I get impatient and use some hot water from the bathtub) and my tanks are 78°, which is about the same temperature I keep the house and in the winter the water will get down to 50 or 60° and I'll need to let it warm up. The other reason I'm letting it sit overnight with a bubbler is in case the prime is removing too much oxygen I want to give it plenty of time to react and plenty of air to replace any Oxygen it uses up.

 

Prime won’t bind up any oxygen unless you overdose it quite a bit or there is no chlorine for it to react with - but leaving water to come to room temperature makes sense. One can use cold water (rather than running hot water to warm up cold water enough to use immediately) and just let it warm up without using any extra energy to warm it.

If your tap water contains chlorine only, leaving it out for 12 hours with an airstone running is likely enough to dechlorinate it so you wouldn’t need to use Prime, but if it’s chloramine, that does take significantly longer to gas out - about 4-5 x as long, so you’d still need Prime for it.

It’s not essential for new water to match in temperature exactly anyway - a few degrees one way or the other won’t alter the tank temperature very much unless you’re changing more than half of it at one time.

So my tap water is extremely hard and the PH tends to be around 8.2
I have lots of driftwood and Indian almond leaves in my aquariums which is keeping the PH down to 7.5.
I was wondering if it's a bad idea to lower the PH of my fresh water with API PH down to around 7.5 to 8.0 so the PH doesn't jump as much after a water change?
My current water treatment involves adding 2 drops of Prime and 1 tbsp of salt per 5 gallons of water and aerating it for at least 12 hours. I was thinking I would adjust the PH as well to help maintain stable conditions in the aquarium.

P.S I know maintaining low therapeutic salt levels in the fresh water aquarium is controversial but I am rolling with the theory that it's a good idea (as recommended by Gerald Griffin) for now.
Edit: I just saw this thread got moved to the PH section which I hadn't seen before and the sticky threads answer my questions.

Prime won’t bind up any oxygen unless you overdose it quite a bit or there is no chlorine for it to react with - but leaving water to come to room temperature makes sense. One can use cold water (rather than running hot water to warm up cold water enough to use immediately) and just let it warm up without using any extra energy to warm it.

If your tap water contains chlorine only, leaving it out for 12 hours with an airstone running is likely enough to dechlorinate it so you wouldn’t need to use Prime, but if it’s chloramine, that does take significantly longer to gas out - about 4-5 x as long, so you’d still need Prime for it.

It’s not essential for new water to match in temperature exactly anyway - a few degrees one way or the other won’t alter the tank temperature very much unless you’re changing more than half of it at one time.

 

My kuhlis live in 8.0 water without issue. I'd think the salt would be more of a challenge for them than the hardness, as they're scaleless fish.

 

My kuhlis live in 8.0 water without issue. I'd think the salt would be more of a challenge for them than the hardness, as they're scaleless fish.

I was just looking at this again and noticed it’s just two drops of Prime in 5G of water. The usual dose is 1ml per 10G, which works out to one or two drops per gallon, kind of depends on how big those drops are.

So you’re not using anywhere near enough Prime to cause any kind of oxygen issue even if there wasn’t any chlorine.

Do you know if the tap water contains chloramine or just chlorine?

 

I was just looking at this again and noticed it’s just two drops of Prime in 5G of water. The usual dose is 1ml per 10G, which works out to one or two drops per gallon, kind of depends on how big those drops are.

So you’re not using anywhere near enough Prime to cause any kind of oxygen issue even if there wasn’t any chlorine.

Do you know if the tap water contains chloramine or just chlorine?

I believe the water contains chloramine because it has about 0.5 per million ammonia. Somebody on here got me a little nervous I was using seven drops of prime so I decided to switch to just two drops and let it sit overnight with aeration which works out good for my schedule anyway I fill the buckets on Friday evening and then do the water change Saturday evening.

 

My current water treatment involves adding 2 drops of Prime and 1 tbsp of salt per 5 gallons of water and aerating it for at least 12 hours. I was thinking I would adjust the PH as well to help maintain stable conditions in the aquarium. .

I was just looking at this post again - if you’re only using two drops of Prime in 5 gallons of water there is just no way it could possibly bind oxygen. The usual dose is 1 ml per 10 gallons which works out to one or two drops per gallon, depending on how big those drops are.

So you’re using less Prime than would ordinarily be called for - you’d use .5 ml if you were dosing conventionally. If you have chlorine only in the tap water, the outgassing with the bubbler for 12 hours probably removes any chlorine that’s left once the Prime reacts with it.

If you have chloramine it might not all gas out, as it takes 4-5x longer for chloramine to outgas than for chlorine alone. The interesting bit is that chlorine reacts with organic compounds so if you add a small amount of water that has not been dechlorinated, it generally isn’t a problem because the chlorine reacts with organic compounds in the tank and is gone. This kind of reaction, plus outgassing, is why you have to keep adding more chlorine to a swimming pool to keep it sanitized for swimming.

Do you happen to know if your tap water is treated with chloramine or just chlorine?

 

I have mystery snails, zebra danios, ghost shrimp, guppies, and a Kuhli loach.
The one I am worried about is the loach I believe all the rest don't mind the extremely hard water and high ph but I'm not so confident about the loach.
I siphon my water out in a 5 gallon buckets and then replace it with 5 gallon buckets of fresh water.. The target salt level is one tablespoon for 5 gallons although I've been putting just a little less than that. I will monitor my salt levels.
As far as why I set my water out overnight with a bubbler that's mostly to let the temperature come down a bit because our water this time of year is around 80 to 90° (and much warmer if I get impatient and use some hot water from the bathtub) and my tanks are 78°, which is about the same temperature I keep the house and in the winter the water will get down to 50 or 60° and I'll need to let it warm up. The other reason I'm letting it sit overnight with a bubbler is in case the prime is removing too much oxygen I want to give it plenty of time to react and plenty of air to replace any Oxygen it uses up.

You don't need to lower the pH for loaches, Loaches prefer high ph. But They are scaleless fish, and they do not like salt, I recommend that you stop the salt ASAP! 2 drops of prime per gallon is not going to reduce the oxygen enough to worry about. The circulation created when Adding new water will add more than enough oxygen.
Good job temperature matching the water, good luck!

 

So I am now using 5 drops of prime and no salt or PH adjustment other than batonicals. All seems to be well in the tanks.