# more water chemistry questions for my low pH soft water pals



## rickwaines (Jan 2, 2011)

So

Given I am going to move toward getting Discus I am preparing myself for the many water changes to come. Gotta love the Python. Till now I have been keeping a SA community tank (where the discus will live) well buffered with seachem's neutral regulator. I have taken great comfort in knowing the water's kh and therfore pH was ironclad. However, it has dawned on me courtesy of others who have more experience with Discus than I, that doing water change every other day, or every day, makes buffering in a soft water low Ph set up's expensive and potentially more distressing for the fish with the ups and downs. So, I am doing every other day changes and only messing with the GH with equilibrium and SA cichlid trace. These bring my TDS up to 100 or so.

My question is. Given our water out of our taps here is pretty great for a SA set up, and I am doing every other day water changes of 60 % or so, do I need to worry about pH "stability"? It seems that the pH has settled in around 6 to 6.4 so it seems stable but it is almost entirely without kH. Depending on the mood of test kit, and the water presumably. My KH is less than 1 and my GH is around 1 or 2 which I have come to understand is just fine for the SA's.

Another question I have is in relation to Ammonia. I now have the presence of Ammonia in my tank which I haven't had in a while. I did add new stock but imagined that the filter could handle it. But right now I am finding that over the course of a day or two it goes from 0 to 1. Now I have read with low pH that the ammonia is non toxic but I am wondering if perhaps the shift in pH from 7 to 6 killed off some or all of my bacteria. Or is it just that the bacteria is less efficient at getting out the ammonia at this pH. Is it usual for low pH tanks to run with a little ammonia given the relatively low pH? 

Anyhoo, that's probably enough wonderin for a sunday. Don't want to sprain my noggin.

Rick

PS, the fish have never been happier it seems despite the appearance of the NH3 NH4. They are bright eyed bushy tailed, hungry and active.


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## Scherb (Feb 10, 2011)

Hello. what size tank ? how many Discus and what size ? as for ph stability i believe it to be quite important. the amount you feed can affect this. i was having trouble with ph drops, i was changing 95% every day and the ph would drop a hole point in a day. a big problem if you ask me. anyway after asking around i decided that i needed to buffer. on a 40g tank with a 95% water change i add 1 quarter tsp of equilibrium and alkaline buffer. which really is nothing for cost. with that my ph will stay the same for 3 days or more i have never gone more than 3 days without a WC. and that only happened once. Cheers


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## gsneufeld (Jan 28, 2012)

The Soft Water Aquarium: Risks and Benefits

hope that helps.


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## rickwaines (Jan 2, 2011)

gsneufeld said:


> The Soft Water Aquarium: Risks and Benefits
> 
> hope that helps.


now that was a great read!


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## Fish rookie (May 21, 2012)

rickwaines said:


> So
> 
> Given I am going to move toward getting Discus I am preparing myself for the many water changes to come. Gotta love the Python. Till now I have been keeping a SA community tank (where the discus will live) well buffered with seachem's neutral regulator. I have taken great comfort in knowing the water's kh and therfore pH was ironclad. However, it has dawned on me courtesy of others who have more experience with Discus than I, that doing water change every other day, or every day, makes buffering in a soft water low Ph set up's expensive and potentially more distressing for the fish with the ups and downs. So, I am doing every other day changes and only messing with the GH with equilibrium and SA cichlid trace. These bring my TDS up to 100 or so.
> 
> ...


I am not sure if people would add equilibrium and Ph buffer if they change their water everyday--that would be kind of just a waste of money, wouldn't it?I suspect your PH would be more or less the same if you do very frequent water change even without any buffer (assuming you are not using Co2 and ther eis nothing in your tank that can raise or drop your PH by a lot)).

Not sure why you have ammonia reading...I would like to hear what others think. If you must get rid fo that may be use zeolite? My PH swings almost daily for almost a whole point in my tank but my ammonia and nitrite are always zero. I dont think a ph of 6.4 would kill your friendly bacteria to the point of not being able to denitryfing. 6.4 Ph should not do that to your bacteria from what I understand. If you are doing water change once every two days I would think your water should be quite clean anyway regardless. Have you washed your filter media? I would love to hear what other think about this.


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## kelownaguy (Jan 1, 2011)

'Nitrosomonas growth is inhibited at a pH of 6.5. All nitrification is inhibited if the pH drops to 6.0 or less. Care must be taken to monitor ammonia if the pH begins to drop close to 6.5'

From Nitrifying Bacteria Facts


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## rickwaines (Jan 2, 2011)

from http://www.bioconlabs.com/nitribactfacts.html - " At this pH (6.5) almost all of the ammonia present in the water will be in the mildly toxic, ionized NH3+ state.
from Bacteria in the Freshwater Aquarium Fortunately, in acidic water (pH below 7.0) ammonia automatically ionizes into ammonium which is basically harmless.

Is it any wonder we get confused sometimes. I love it!


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## Rastapus (Apr 21, 2010)

Continuous daily water changes are great and will keep the pH around the same as the source but the GH and KH being very low all the time can be hard on the fish. As stated in my sticky(s) a GH and KH at 0 or close to it only occurs in the wild during the rainy season and with WILD fish. All cities except in BC have minerals present in the tap water, we do not. I still believe there should be additions regardless of water change frequency.


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## rickwaines (Jan 2, 2011)

Hey Grant
Everything you say about the gh is totally right on. I get it. And subscribe to it, in general. With the set up in question I am adding trace minerals that raise the gh and provide a TDS reading that seems reasonable. I guess my confusion, as it relates to soft water species and set ups is that the discus grow out people (if I am not mistaken) are asked not to add anything to the water and, as you well know our water has nothing to begin with. So, One can only presume that these grow out tanks are running with near 0 kh and gH. Rick told me he has no measurable hardness in his systems. So, you can see how a fellow can get off track. I know that most of the fish are domestic and that they have likely been raised in tanks with higher kh and gh than ours but here is an example of someone with a well respected business that goes the other direction. Again, I know this wouldn't work with any other species other than those that like softer conditions and I appreciate your logic and I am a believer in the kh gh pH TDS stability. As is Rick of course. He said explicitly that stability is more important, which of course makes sense. But I am having a hard time trying to decide on an approach with this mikrogeo discus tank. For example. If one is doing every day or every other day water changes and adding buffers to change our 0 kh 0 gh 6.1? ish water into 3 kh 3 gh 6.6 6.8, and we do the additions in the tank, isn't there a degree of osmotic shock that will be occuring that will cause stress as well? and, with a low pH tank it seems that ammonia is ionized immediately into ammoniium and the therfore there is no production of nitrite or nitrate. Which would seem to be a benefit no? I know that since I went without buffers in this tank the ammonia has crept up and I can't seem to keep it down but there are no nitrites or nitrates either. And apparently the ammonia test I use tests total ammonia so this reading could be made up of ammonium. I do find it all very fascinating, THANK YOU ALL for contributing to my knowledge.


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## Fish rookie (May 21, 2012)

I am no expert and my 2 cents is if you are so concerned about KH/GH but you are doing very frequent water changes (like daily) then perhaps you can prepare a big container of water to set aside pre-mixed with the KH/GH/PH of you choice and only use that water for water change?


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## Rastapus (Apr 21, 2010)

rickwaines said:


> Hey Grant
> Everything you say about the gh is totally right on. I get it. And subscribe to it, in general. With the set up in question I am adding trace minerals that raise the gh and provide a TDS reading that seems reasonable. I guess my confusion, as it relates to soft water species and set ups is that the discus grow out people (if I am not mistaken) are asked not to add anything to the water and, as you well know our water has nothing to begin with. So, One can only presume that these grow out tanks are running with near 0 kh and gH. Rick told me he has no measurable hardness in his systems. So, you can see how a fellow can get off track. I know that most of the fish are domestic and that they have likely been raised in tanks with higher kh and gh than ours but here is an example of someone with a well respected business that goes the other direction. Again, I know this wouldn't work with any other species other than those that like softer conditions and I appreciate your logic and I am a believer in the kh gh pH TDS stability. As is Rick of course. He said explicitly that stability is more important, which of course makes sense. But I am having a hard time trying to decide on an approach with this mikrogeo discus tank. For example. If one is doing every day or every other day water changes and adding buffers to change our 0 kh 0 gh 6.1? ish water into 3 kh 3 gh 6.6 6.8, and we do the additions in the tank, isn't there a degree of osmotic shock that will be occuring that will cause stress as well? and, with a low pH tank it seems that ammonia is ionized immediately into ammoniium and the therfore there is no production of nitrite or nitrate. Which would seem to be a benefit no? I know that since I went without buffers in this tank the ammonia has crept up and I can't seem to keep it down but there are no nitrites or nitrates either. And apparently the ammonia test I use tests total ammonia so this reading could be made up of ammonium. I do find it all very fascinating, THANK YOU ALL for contributing to my knowledge.


I understand where you are coming from. If the Discus are from Malaysia then they are likely raised in water containing a GH level. If others choose to keep them in water with 0 GH, up to them. Wild discus do not live under these conditions so why would it be of benefit to do so? Again, his fish look good, could they look better with more TDS? Perhaps likely. I will give an example pertaining to Discus. I had a hobbyist in Coquitlam many years ago that used filtered water etc and did not add anything to his Discus aquariums. I recommended Discus Essential to him and he was stunned at the difference in his fish. In fact, that product was the only product he ever bought on a continuous basis. How much that product contributed to his GH I am not sure but he was of the same mindset as your example until he tried it. Food for thought.


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