OK, so recently I picked up a Asterophysus Batrachus (Gulper Cat) and have had him for about a month or longer now. He is very healthy, eating, acting normal etc. but I never really tested the pH of my aquarium until now, only to find out its 7.6. On the cat-eLog (http://www.planetcatfish.com/catelog/sp ... ies_id=961) it says they live in 5.6 - 7.0 so my question is should I be worried about this? And how do I go about correcting the issue? Are there any specific types of drift wood or rocks I can use to lower and control pH levels?
Also if anyone knows of any good articles related to this topic I would greatly appreciate it.
Need some advice on pH
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MatsP
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Re: Need some advice on pH
The general thought is that pH is not that critical to fish (within a reasonable range from pH 7 - clearly pH 2 or 13 would be bad for most things). However, it serves as an indicator of the hardness of the natural water of the fish. If they are living in pH 5.5-7, then one can surmise that the water ranges from quite soft to somewhat less soft water. One can also at least guess that your water is fairly hard.
Water hardness is a part of the total amount of minerals in the water, "Total Dissolved Solids", TDS. Another measure that works together with this is "Electrical Conductivity" - how well the water will transfer electricity. The more minerals in the water, the better a conductor the water is. The TDS of the water does affect the fish.
Now, if your fish is looking and behaving "happy", I wouldn't worry too much. But if you really want to change the pH in your tank, then you probably should make the water softer - once you do that, the pH will automatically be lowered, because there is less minerals in the water that makes the pH high. The only workable way to make the water softer is to use demineralized water, such as RO water. A "water softener" will not help in this particular situation, as it's a ion-exchange unit, and it won't affect the TDS value.
This is a somewhat simplified view, and I could probably write abotu a dozen pages on the subject...
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Mats
Water hardness is a part of the total amount of minerals in the water, "Total Dissolved Solids", TDS. Another measure that works together with this is "Electrical Conductivity" - how well the water will transfer electricity. The more minerals in the water, the better a conductor the water is. The TDS of the water does affect the fish.
Now, if your fish is looking and behaving "happy", I wouldn't worry too much. But if you really want to change the pH in your tank, then you probably should make the water softer - once you do that, the pH will automatically be lowered, because there is less minerals in the water that makes the pH high. The only workable way to make the water softer is to use demineralized water, such as RO water. A "water softener" will not help in this particular situation, as it's a ion-exchange unit, and it won't affect the TDS value.
This is a somewhat simplified view, and I could probably write abotu a dozen pages on the subject...
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Mats