Natural pH adjuster

[mapreader]

I've been wondering if vinegar could be used to lower pH of water without harming my fish. Our water has a pH of about 8, and even the bottled water I've bought has been that high. I've read where the chemicals sold in the stores are not recommended for changing pH so thought a natural substance would be better.

[amanichen]

There's really no such thing as a "natural" way to lower the pH of a water sample. Ok, there is, but not in the way that people think of "natural"

Lowering the pH of a water sample either involves adding more acids, or removing some of the bases. The easier of the two methods is adding acids to the water.

Most pH down products contain nitric acid or sulfuric acid solutions. There's also hydochloric acid (aka muriatic acid.)

You can also filter water through peat, which contains tannic acids, which will both lower the pH and hardness of the water.

There's also a processes called reverse osmosis filtering which will reduce the pH, hardness and buffering capacity of water.

There are also pH buffers which will maintain the pH at a certain level, for a certain amount of time (this depends on your water chemistry, and how many fish are in your tank, etc.)

I've only seen vinegar used a few times, and that was preparing a solution of lime-water for marine aquariums (the vinegar helps liberate more calcium ions off of more carbonate ions.) I think that vinegar (Acetic acid) can be broken down by certain bacteria usually found in peoples' aquariums, which would make the addition of vinegar a bit pointless.

Before you do anything, telling me the GH (hardness) and KH (carbonate level) of your water would be a big help. That way I can help you make an informed decision about what's best.

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(I just thought I'd throw this in)

pH for bettas in general:

Basically, a pH of 8.0 isn't good for bettas. It won't kill them right away, but for better health and longevity, getting the pH closer to 7.0 would be a good idea. Most wild bettas live in slightly acidic water, and while captive bred populations might be used to a higher ph slightly higher than 7.0. No matter how you look at it, 8.0 is still too high.

You'll often hear people who say: "you should adjust the fish to your water and not the water to your fish." Yes, this can be done, within reason. But if the fish you're getting from a pet store spent its entire life in 7.0, and a person comes along and tries to suddenly adapt it to live in a pH of 8.0, then that's going to have detrimental effects on the fish's long term health as well as its lifespan.

So basically, shoot for a pH closer to 7.0, but don't be obsessive about getting to 7.0.

[mapreader]

I know a pH of 8 is way too high, but that's what I have. Until a week ago, I didn't know it was THAT high. I only had a low-range test kit.

Yesterday I went looking for GH and KH kits, but could only find them in a master kit. However, I did a 50% (actually a little more) water change yesterday. The water going in was bottled water that tested at slightly under 7.0. After adding it to the tank, the water tested 7.2. This morning (about 19 hours later) it was at 7.8.

I have a 5-gal hex tank with coated rock as the base. The betta is an only fish. The tank is cycled. How he lived through that, I'll never know.

I'm going to read about the RO water and lowering the pH. We can get RO water readily and cheaply. Isn't is going to be missing nutrients though?

Thanks for the help.

Ann

[twoluvcats]

I have 8.0ph water out of the tap too. I use R/O water and then seachem's Neutral Regulator as a buffer. That STILL only gets my pH down to ~7.6...but its better than 8-8.2 is what i figure.

[amanichen]

Coated rock at the base?

I would do is get rid of the substrate, do a water change, and then test the pH to see if the substrate is affecting it at all.

But again, until you can get me some KH measurements I can't make any specific recommendations.