Help Newbie help with extremely high ph

[shandellrae]

Hello everyone. I need help dealing with my extremely high ph and kh. My plants are not happy and I dont think the fish are either.
Some details about the tank:

• 65 gallon with 20 gallon sump
• aquasoil capped with play sand
• large acacia stump (i think its acacia, honestly cant remember)
• fluval plant light

Plants:

• limnophilia sessiflora
• alternanthera pink
• 2 kinds of cryptocorynes
• red tiger lily
• amazon sword
• vallisneria

Fish:

• couple angels
• acara
• corys
• pleco
• crayfish (moved to a different tank for time being while main tank is being medicated)

Fertilizers:

• nilocg thrive shrimp safe liquid (once a week after water change)
• nilocg thrive capsules (only used these once so far)

Tank Parameters:

• ammonia 0
• nitrite 0
• nitrate 10
• ph 8.8 (i think its higher but thats as high as the test kit goes)
• kh 23dkh
• gh 0-too low to test

Source water:

• well water with iron filter
• ph 8.8 (probably higher)
• kh 25dkh
• gh 0-too low to test

(I've also tested the water before it goes through the iron filter (i think, theres a drain between the pressure tank and iron filter, it just seems odd that the readings are all the same, i would think that atleast the gh would be higher) and readings are all the same. I tested the water from my brita filter today and found that the ph was 7.5 and kh was 21. I will be leaving some of that water out overnight and testing in the morning to see if the ph changes.)

Now, I have no idea what to do with any of this. I cant seem to keep any plants alive. Alternanthera has turned brown and is melting away. Limnophilia is growing but it seems more "stemmy" and is starting to turn brown. Swords and some of the vall have holes in the leaves. Crypts seem to be doing ok. LFS says that the high ph wont allow the plants to utilize nutrients like they should...?

Some of the fish have torn fins. I dont know if its from the water or aggression. Everyone I've talked to thinks its aggression. A lady at my LFS said that my super high ph elevates the hormones that the fish give off which can then cause more aggression...?

I have no idea what to do to either fix this or deal with it. Most things I read say i need to lower ph and kh and up gh. The lady at my LFS says not worry about gh and just focus on ph and kh. But I have seen posts of people with very similar water parameters and they have beautiful tanks. Greggz being one of them. I have messaged him but havent heard back yet. Ideally, i would like to make my water work. I am going to do a test with the water from the brita filter and see if ph stays lower. If the ph stays at 7.5 and kh at 21, is that good enough? Or do I still need to lower kh? I also tried mixing RO with my water. 50/50 didnt do much. Ph was still 8.8 or higher, kh was 20. It wasnt until i mixed 8:1 ro:tap, that the ph went down to 7.8-8.0, kh was at 3. The RO ph was 6.6-6.8 with 0 kh and gh.

Im sorry if this was all over the place, welcome to my brain lol! At this point, i feel like i just need someone to tell me what to do. I dont want to spend anymore money than i absolutely have to. Please help me!

 

[Unexpected]

Greggz definitely doesn't have 21dKH. I'm positive he runs basically 0dKH. If the water is truly 0dGH, you will need to add calcium and magnesium to the water. Would you be willing to use a RODI system?

Also, 0tds water can not be pH'd without expensive lab equipment. But it's truly a 7pH.

 

[Koan]

Fish:

• couple angels
• acara
• corys
• pleco

All of these fish are South American and have physiology designed for water well under 8° dKH . The osmotic stress on these fish is significant with the water they're in at this time.

Stressed fish are unhappy fish, and so the damage is likely from aggression that is secondary to the fact that these fish were never designed to live in water with that much carbonate in it.

With that amount of carbonate in your water, your only real choices are either to

1) go with African cichlids from Lake Tanganyika, Lake Malawi, or Lake Victoria, or hard water tolerant fishes like platys and Guppies, and very few plants, or​

2) use 100% reverse osmosis (RO) water that you remineralize to your own desired levels of carbonate and GH hardness for the plants and animals that you want to keep.​

(Africans are neat, very much their own world of fishkeeping.. unfortunately a world almost entirely without plants )

Remineralizing RO water is easy with calcium sulfate, Epsom salt and potassium carbonate.

All that that pH is telling you is how high the carbonate is in the water. High pH is a direct result of the high KH, you cannot lower pH in the system with that much carbonate hardness without removing the carbonates that are causing the high ph.

Your Brita cannot help with this, carbonate can only be removed from water by reverse osmosis, not by filtration.

Here's a brief overview

tds /kh-explained" data-host="www.2hraquarist.com" data-pending="false">

What is a good level for KH in a planted aquarium ?

Does KH matter in a planted aquarium ? What is a good level of KH to have? Is it necessary to buffer the tank from pH crashes? This page explores the role that carbonate hardness (KH) plays and how to raise and lower the KH level in an planted tank.

www.2hraquarist.com

Fortunately the technology is much improved and practical reverse osmosis systems can be had for very reasonable cost and it sounds like you already have access to RO water. Most keepers of planted tanks in the UK have your exact same problem, a lot of their water is described as liquid rock which is essentially what you have.

 

[techman81]

Most keepers of planted tanks in the UK have your exact same problem, a lot of their water is described as liquid rock which is essentially what you have.

Which is what makes their beer good.

 

[shandellrae]

Greggz definitely doesn't have 21dKH. I'm positive he runs basically 0dKH. If the water is truly 0dGH, you will need to add calcium and magnesium to the water. Would you be willing to use a RODI system?

Also, 0tds water can not be pH'd without expensive lab equipment. But it's truly a 7pH.

Yes I know. This was a post from many many years ago on a different forum.

I have decided to go with ro. I was very hesitant to begin with because I was worried about it being complicated and the cost. But I think my fish are really suffering...

Would it be better to go with ro or rodi? Google says that rodi can be overkill for a freshwater tank.

 

[Unexpected]

Yes I know. This was a post from many many years ago on a different forum.

I have decided to go with ro. I was very hesitant to begin with because I was worried about it being complicated and the cost. But I think my fish are really suffering...

Would it be better to go with ro or rodi? Google says that rodi can be overkill for a freshwater tank.

You can go either way. I use to use DI, but switched to a faster unit without DI. Water comes out at 2ppm and is completely fine. I recommend Alpha Chemicals for cheap CaSO4 and any plain Epsom salt from a pharmacy. Just make sure it has no flavoring. Also, mixing your own fertilizer will pay off the RO unit pretty quickly.

 

[Naturescapes_Rocco]

No need for DI in my opinion. I've been using 2-4 TDS RO water in all my tanks for years.

In most tanks you don't need to Remineralize your KH.

Just use a product like APT Sky or Salty Shrimp GH+ to remineralize, or (for WAY WAY cheaper) learn to use Rotala Butterfly dosing calculator to dose CaSO4•2H2O for Ca to 20-30ppm, and MgSO4•7H2O for Mg 4-8ppm. Sounds hard at first but is VERY easy and will save you so much money, especially in larger tanks.

All these Remineralization products are, is MgSO4 and CaSO4.

 

[shandellrae]

All of these fish are South American and have physiology designed for water well under 8° dKH. The osmotic stress on these fish is significant with the water they're in at this time.

Stressed fish are unhappy fish, and so the damage is likely from aggression that is secondary to the fact that these fish were never designed to live in water with that much carbonate in it.

With that amount of carbonate in your water, your only real choices are either to

1) go with African cichlids from Lake Tanganyika, Lake Malawi, or Lake Victoria, or hard water tolerant fishes like platys and Guppies, and very few plants, or​

2) use 100% reverse osmosis (RO) water that you remineralize to your own desired levels of carbonate and GH hardness for the plants and animals that you want to keep.​

(Africans are neat, very much their own world of fishkeeping.. unfortunately a world almost entirely without plants )

Remineralizing RO water is easy with calcium sulfate, Epsom salt and potassium carbonate.

All that that pH is telling you is how high the carbonate is in the water. High pH is a direct result of the high KH, you cannot lower pH in the system with that much carbonate hardness without removing the carbonates that are causing the high ph.

Your Brita cannot help with this, carbonate can only be removed from water by reverse osmosis, not by filtration.

Here's a brief overview

What is a good level for KH in a planted aquarium ?

Does KH matter in a planted aquarium ? What is a good level of KH to have? Is it necessary to buffer the tank from pH crashes? This page explores the role that carbonate hardness (KH) plays and how to raise and lower the KH level in an planted tank.

www.2hraquarist.com

Fortunately the technology is much improved and practical reverse osmosis systems can be had for very reasonable cost and it sounds like you already have access to RO water. Most keepers of planted tanks in the UK have your exact same problem, a lot of their water is described as liquid rock which is essentially what you have.

Thank you for the insight! I am going to switch to ro. Would it be better to go with ro or rodi? Google says rodi can be overkill for a freshwater tank...?

And do you have a suggestion for remineralizing? I would prefer a one and done product if that's possible. Again, I'm very new to all this. This is my first tank.

 

[Unexpected]

Thank you for the insight! I am going to switch to ro. Would it be better to go with ro or rodi? Google says rodi can be overkill for a freshwater tank...?

And do you have a suggestion for remineralizing? I would prefer a one and done product if that's possible. Again, I'm very new to all this. This is my first tank.

A one and done option is very expensive. If you can measure cake ingredients, you can mix GH with a blind fold.

 

[shandellrae]

You can go either way. I use to use DI, but switched to a faster unit without DI. Water comes out at 2ppm and is completely fine. I recommend Alpha Chemicals for cheap CaSO4 and any plain Epsom salt from a pharmacy. Just make sure it has no flavoring. Also, mixing your own fertilizer will pay off the RO unit pretty quickly.

How do I mix my own fertilizer?

I'm sorry, this is all sooo new to me. I thought having a freshwater tank would be easy. Set it up, conditioner water, change water once a week, feed fish. I didn't realize how much the water chemistry affects everything.

 

[Naturescapes_Rocco]

Thank you for the insight! I am going to switch to ro. Would it be better to go with ro or rodi? Google says rodi can be overkill for a freshwater tank...?

And do you have a suggestion for remineralizing? I would prefer a one and done product if that's possible. Again, I'm very new to all this. This is my first tank.

Hey @shandellrae, I'd recommend using APT Sky as your first all-in-one remineralization product. The easiest way to do it, is to grab a TDS meter for $12 on Amazon. No need for using water conditioner if using an RO system that has carbon prefilters, which 90% of them do!

1. During a water change, remove your tank's water.
2. Re-add fresh RO water.
3. Mix a few small scoops of APT Sky in a separate container and pour into your now-full aquarium
4. Test with your TDS meter as you go, dissolving more APT Sky until your tank reaches 100-150 TDS on the TDS pen meter.

You're done!

 

[Unexpected]

How do I mix my own fertilizer?

I'm sorry, this is all sooo new to me. I thought having a freshwater tank would be easy. Set it up, conditioner water, change water once a week, feed fish. I didn't realize how much the water chemistry affects everything.

First, stop apologizing. We are complete planted tanks nerds. We love this stuff!

Luckily, mixing your own fertilizer costs pennies compared to pre mixed all in ones. You simply buy the powders and add them to a mixing bottle.

Here's what you will need. Just get it cheap off Amazon or may already have some items.
Gram scale(0.00 or the the 100th position)
If no Gram scale, measuring spoons down to 1/64th. However, Gram scale better.
Fertilizer Macros and Micros. Easy cheap kit Here I do however recommend getting the same kit but with jars. Then buy the bags to refill, but you may have jars or other option to use. They also have the same kit with mixing bottles. I just mix gallons worth and then add to mixing bottles for ease of use.

CaSO4 Here will last a very long time, but I buy 20lbs. I mix 150 gallons a week.

MgSO4 (Epsom salt) any pharmacy.

That's it, all of this will likely last you a year or more.

 

[Koan]

And do you have a suggestion for remineralizing?

By all means start out with APT Sky or NilocG GH Remineralizer powder to save your sanity right now, while you're getting everything stabilized! Instructions for those are right on the bag / bottle.

Later when you want to save some money, here's a plug-and-play calculator called Rotala Butterfly. This will guide you through exactly what measured quantities of calcium sulfate, Epsom salt and potassium carbonate you would need to add to any quantity of water change, to hit any particular target of degrees KH and GH.

Here's a quick walkthrough of how to use that calculator

You can also skip the potassium carbonate / KH, it's not really important to add that carbonate back in for your fish or for your plants! However if you end up wanting to keep shrimp or snails, you will want to include some KH.

When you get to the point where you want to mix up your own fertilizers, that same calculator is also used. To figure out what you need, there is some help here

Fertilizer dosing guide for planted aquariums; when to dose more or less ?

So you know what to dose. But exactly how much? Here I share the details of 2 popular planted aquarium fertilizer dosing approaches: the EI dosing approach and ADA's dosing approach. Which aquascaping styles work better with a richer/leaner dosing approach? This page answers these questions and...

www.2hraquarist.com

And here

Mixing dry aquarium fertilisers

What are dry fertilisers? Dry aquarium fertilisers are fertilisers that are supplied as pure chemical salts. These salts dissolve in water to provide plants with the nutrients they need. They are extremely concentrated because they come in pure chemical salt form. Most commercial fertilisers are...

www.2hraquarist.com

 

[shandellrae]

Wow thank you all soo much! One more question... why am I not supplementing for kh? Most things I read online say you absolutely need kh to stabilize ph. I trust your advice to not bother with it. I'm just not understanding why some people say you do need it and others say you dont. Im going to assume that kh doesn't actually stabilize ph, so what does, if anything at all?

 

[Sb1415]

Wow thank you all soo much! One more question... why am I not supplementing for kh? Most things I read online say you absolutely need kh to stabilize ph. I trust your advice to not bother with it. I'm just not understanding why some people say you do need it and others say you dont. Im going to assume that kh doesn't actually stabilize ph, so what does, if anything at all?

Hard water vs Soft water plants decoded

How do I know if I have hard water or soft water? Do plants like soft water? How does hard water or soft water affects my fishes or snails? Read on here to learn more.

www.2hraquarist.com

Are bacteria affected due to low pH/KH in aquasoil tanks?

Does the low pH caused by CO2 injection or aquasoil affect livestock or bacteria in the planted aquarium? Should I use buffers to raise the pH?

www.2hraquarist.com

It seems that many have the same questions. One website to answer them all (mostly, Scapecrunch for the rest).

 

[Unexpected]

Wow thank you all soo much! One more question... why am I not supplementing for kh? Most things I read online say you absolutely need kh to stabilize ph. I trust your advice to not bother with it. I'm just not understanding why some people say you do need it and others say you dont. Im going to assume that kh doesn't actually stabilize ph, so what does, if anything at all?

Because people just regurgitate what others say. A long time ago, when pH was the only real test available, sudden fish death was attributed to a changing pH. We now understand sudden fish death is caused by other factors. Disease, lack of maintenance and more. So it was assumed the pH was causing it. All of us running near zero KH and injecting CO2, which causes a pH change twice a day, know this is just old wives tales. Usually, the people giving this absolutely false information have sub par tanks and just think it's cool to sound informed. The important thing to remember is pH is just a value assigned to how acidic or basic the water is. If a fish died from a sudden change, it's not the pH, it's what caused the pH to change. An example, injecting CO2 lowers pH significantly and quickly. If I inject too much CO2, I will kill my fish. The CO2 killed my fish, not the pH.

 

[Koan]

kh doesn't actually stabilize ph, so what does, if anything at all?

Actually, that's exactly what KH does do KH is what maintains pH above neutral in water when you add CO2.

The issue is, pH fluctuations don't bother plants, and rarely bother fish. Unless you're keeping Discus, it's not a thing.

pH, KH, GH, TDS - Introduction to basic water parameters

Basic water parameters and how they affect an aquarium pH pH is a measure of how acidic or alkaline the water is. A pH reading of 7 is neutral, while numbers below 7 are acidic and numbers above 7 are alkaline. What is pH actually pH stands for "Power of hydrogen". A technical description of pH...

www.2hraquarist.com

Sudden pH fluctuations can matter to invertebrates, specifically cherry and crystal shrimp. (Amano shrimp actually come from brackish water and are more robust, although fast pH changes can stress them as well.)

However it's the cause of the pH fluctuation that actually stresses the shrimp.

If you do a water change with replacement water that does not match the KH in your tank, so that the KH in your tank changes abruptly, the pH will also change.

But it's the osmotic stress of the sudden KH change, the shift in carbonate content of the water, that is actually stressing your shrimp. The pH change itself is a side effect.

By contrast if you use CO2 in a shrimp tank, as lots and lots and lots and lots of planted tank people do, that will cause daily pH fluctuation that doesn't bother the shrimp. The osmotic content of the water is staying the same, and the increased acidity is not bothering them.

However, persistently acidic pH will cause snail shells to dissolve. Their shell calcium carbonate goes into solution, literally dissolves, in acidic water. So if you want to keep mystery snails, rabbit snails, other interesting snails or breed cherry shrimp in your water, you're going to want to have some KH so that the pH stays above 7.4 or so even when you use co2.

Since you're creating water from scratch, you can set any KH you want depending on what livestock you want to keep. For pet snails, you would need to have enough KH to keep your pH at about 8.4 or higher, so that when the CO2 comes on it doesn't fall much below 7.4.

The plants don't care, as long as the KH stays below 6° to 12° or so.. depending on the specific plant. Here's a summary :

Planted tanks generally perform better at lower KH ranges than at higher ones. In terms of growing plants, you can keep sensitive soft water species between 1-2 dKH. (Some Eriocaulons and Tonina species will not survive in higher KH tanks). Between 2-7 dKH you can keep 97% of all commercially available aquatic plants in optimum condition. (Some Rotala and Ammania species may do better in softer water). Between 6-12+ dKH you can probably grow 95% of species well, but some will be sub-optimal. Above 18 dKH or so, there are more problems with plant growth - at this level, hardy plants such as Java fern, anubias, vals, certain swords and crypts will still grow well, but many other species will stunt.

If all you keep are fish and plants, fluctuations of pH are not a concern. Excessive CO2 of course can be dangerous but it's not because of pH changes.

 

[Pepere]

why am I not supplementing for kh? Most things I read online say you absolutely need kh to stabilize ph

Nitrate and other dissolved metabolic waste products are acidic. If you are regularly doing water changes you flush those compounds out of the tank and ph stays awfully stable.

Lots of people hate doing water changes. For many people the holy grail of fish keeping is water top offs and feeding. They like putting crushed coral in their tank to constantly replenish carbonates to react with the acids…

They typically advocate for algae consuming livestock as well and claim they are “creating an ecosystem”…

I dont particularly care for the aesthetic that these tanks achieve…

There are different techniques that can be used. Rather than avoiding water changes I work at making them easier…

 

[techman81]

I dont particularly care for the aesthetic that these tanks achieve

This ^^^^^^^

 

[shandellrae]

No need for DI in my opinion. I've been using 2-4 TDS RO water in all my tanks for years.

In most tanks you don't need to Remineralize your KH.

Just use a product like APT Sky or Salty Shrimp GH+ to remineralize, or (for WAY WAY cheaper) learn to use Rotala Butterfly dosing calculator to dose CaSO4•2H2O for Ca to 20-30ppm, and MgSO4•7H2O for Mg 4-8ppm. Sounds hard at first but is VERY easy and will save you so much money, especially in larger tanks.

All these Remineralization products are, is MgSO4 and CaSO4.

ok so i just want to clarify to make sure im doing everything properly.

I set up the ro unit this morning, did a 30 minute flush as per instructions and now have a container filling. I was thinking of doing a 20% water change every couple days. Is that ok? too much, too little?

And is it ok to do the first water change with just straight ro? The calcium wont be here for a couple days but i really want to get this process started as im really worried about a couple of the fish. There is already low to no gh...

For remineralizing the water, im going to order alpha chemicals calcium CaSO4*2H2O and dose to 20-30ppm.
For magnesium, i couldnt find anything from alpha chemicals but someone said to just use epsom salt...? I do already have some plain epsom salt. If that works i will dose 4-8ppm.
If I did decide to raise kh, what should i get for that?

Once I get the levels where I want them and stable, am i still using liquid fertilizer? I assume i still need root tabs...?

Am i missing anything?