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just bought some sterbai form my local shop they are selling them for 2 @£8.99 i got 6 and a bristlenose plec for £14 a friend works there . i will try to get some more.

what water parameters are best suitable for these fish?
i would like to try breeding if possible.
they are in a tank 12x24x12 with sand substrate and a few pieces of slate for decor.ph is around 8 amonia and nitrates are fine been running over a month now. corys are in the tank alone.

i realise my ph is high but whats the best way to reduce it?
i have tried some liquid ph reducer but didnt seem to work. would some bog wood be benificial? i have use of a ro unit.
thanks!

I'm using rainwater. This works fine, although I don't have any measures. pH i below 8 I'm shure, but I never measure any other parameters.

Your set up seems ok I think. Is there any javamoss og other plants?

there is a moss ball about 5'' diameter in there and some cuttings from my other tank that are growing well.
would some bogwood help? i can get it with java fern or moss.

Hi.

Firstly, if you're using those chemical pH tests, you won't get very accurate results.

Go to a good LFS with some of your tapwater and ask them to test it with a properly calibrated digital meter, or you can buy these for about £40.

I assume your tapwater is the same as the tank, and you aren't using sand that raises the pH (like coral sand).

With hard water, there is nothing that you can do to lower the pH significantly. You will cause more harm than good with those bottles of acid buffer.

With access to RO water, you will have no problems in lowering the pH. Just mix a tiny bit of tapwater back into the RO water to reach a conductivity of between 100μS/cm and 160μS/cm.

This is about 1˚dKH to 3˚dKH.

This should give you a pH between 6.0 and 6.9. Perfect for your corydoras.

thanks i have a digital ph meter and all three of my tanks were around 8.2.

I have a set of 6 C. sterbai, and they are quite happily living in my big tank, which has normal southern english tap-water, pH 8+ and very hard, and around 26-27'C. They seem to be doing just fine.

And as racoll said, there's really no other way to lower the pH other than taking minerals out of the tap-water. Of course, you could go do silly things like adding muriatic (hydrochloric) acid to the water... [This will lower he pH, but you'll have to make sure you don't overdo it, and any hardness in the water will still remain, and whilst pH is an indication of state of water, the hardness (or conductivity) is really what matters].

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Mats