Hi Tiddleye,

I've been getting more of a sof****er fish that can tolerate wide range of
pH.. but pH drift is bad in either case.

right now I have some whitecloud minnows, danios, siamege algae eaters and
lace gouramis. all tolerate soft water and wide pH range (with a possible
exception of the SAE.. but they're kinda new, so...)

I am trying to keep it a sof****er tank.. eventually once the pH stabilizes,
I want to add some otos.. and they are soft water fish. (not to mention my
tap is soft, so it's easier to keep it as soft water)

GH is 6 right now, so I guess that is ok. I guess i'm looking for ways to
increase KH without increasing pH... do you know of any?

linda

"Tiddleye" wrote in message
...
Hi Linda,

You have very soft water and your fish are suffering from PH shock by the
sound of it. I believe that your PH is unstable because your water has no
buffering capacity so that when you do a ph check, there are to little
minerals (either acid or alkaline) to get an accurate reading. If you want
a
ph value of around 7.5 you need to increase your GH to about 6 and your KH
to around 10. This will stabilize your waters ph value.
You didn't say what fish you have so I don't know what parameters you
need.

Regards
Tiddleye
"linda mar" wrote in message
...
Hi all,

I've been trying to figure out what may be stressing my fish... before
I
start adding wide-spectrum antibiotics or anti-parasitics, I wanted to
rule
out stuff that is more prosaic than some insidious infection...

so I've started to test pH more regularly (every day for the past 4
days).
it's a moderately planted 37G tank, nitrite, ammonia, nitrate is always
zero... temp ~75F.. UGF (2 aquaclear201 powerheadss) + HOT Magnum.

unfortunately when I test, I sometimes get a color that doesn't match
any
of
the color on the pH chart (AP pH test kit). so one day, I got a dead-on
7.0... then the next day, it was baby blue, but not as dark as a 7.6..
and
it definitely was not 7.2 or 7.4 green-tinge. so.. what the heck is this
value?

so my question is:

1. what would equate to a very diluted 7.6 color? is that considered
7.6?
(basically, no green.. looks like the baby blue for the AP freshwater
nitrite test kit when nitrite=0, but much much lighter than what the
card
shows for 7.6). I've tried very high pH (tap water).. and the color
turned
very dark blue, like the 7.6 on the scale.. so..

2. can a pH drift from 7.0 to 7.6 in two days when you dont' do
anything?
can plants do this? (CO2 outdiffusion, etc) I've heard of water turning
acid, but not creeping to alkaline...

3. dKH=2, dGH=6... which is kinda funny.. it was 3, 3 last month. just
tested the the tap and is GH/KH=2... (I use the dechlor'ed tap when I do
partial water change...) so the GH drifted from 2 to 6 in the past month
or
so. is this indicative of something strange with the water? (oddly
enough,
when I checked my LFS's water it was pH7.0, GH=6, KH=2, and we probably
have
the same water source as we are neighboring city.. I wonder if tap
drifted
really high in GH one week when we both did water change?)

4. I've added flourish, flourish tabs, flourish iron and flourish excel
in
recommended doses over the past month. can that contribute to GH creep
and
pH instability?

5. should I even *attempt* to increase kH to stabilize the pH from
fluctuating too much? (my idea is less is better for overall
maintenanceship
of tanks... but if it is necessary..)

6. is there a better pH indicator that will show me better 7.0-8.0
range?
(my water is alkaline.. have yet to see it go below 7.0)


linda