# lesson learned about checking tap water



## jhj0112 (Jul 30, 2013)

While I concentrated on shrimp tank and salt water tank, I lost quite bit of fishes( 3 dwarf rainbow, 1 apisto macmesteri, 1 apisto sp. steel blue, 2 apisto aggies, 2 golden ram, 1 GBR)in my 90G tank. 

I checked the water and PH was 7.8!!! I did not add any PH booster in my tank so I checked the tap water it was close PH 8.0!! very heavy price to pay for the lesson to check tap water regularly!! 

I'm so mad at myself that i did not check water and lost my apistos  thankfully, panduro pair, nannacaras seems to be ok. 
I'm almost afraid to check my 90G tank tomorrow.. 

So those of you who keeps fishes that requires acidic soft water, check the tap water regularly.


----------



## jobber (May 14, 2010)

Always keep in mind when you do water change whether or not it's rain heavily the past few days; and to make any changes accordingly.


----------



## jhj0112 (Jul 30, 2013)

yeah! very heavy price to pay for the lesson T.T


----------



## Reckon (Jul 25, 2012)

Just wondering what's your substrate?


----------



## charles (Apr 21, 2010)

did you test your tap water right out of the tap right away? It is a very high reading for ph out from tap.


----------



## shaobo (Apr 21, 2010)

What area of Surrey are you at? The tap water in my house usually stays below PH 7.


----------



## jhj0112 (Jul 30, 2013)

I live in cloverdale.. I use regular gravel nothing fancy.. it (tap water PH) was always around 6.8... somehow, this time it was 8.0.. it is weird though.. i have never had this PH high in tap water ever.. I tested it three times with two different ph test kit to confirm.. it is coming right out of tap water..


----------



## Reckon (Jul 25, 2012)

just wondering if your substrate had some buffering capacity.


----------



## SeaHorse_Fanatic (Apr 22, 2010)

That is very strange for your pH to be that high. Sorry to hear about the fish losses.


----------



## Vancitycam (Oct 23, 2012)

8.0 is perfect for me but sorry for your loss that's a big one, 8.0 seems quite high for the tap but what part of surrey seeing its huge lol.


----------



## Algae Beater (Apr 21, 2010)

Metro Vancouver has been augmenting the pH of the water in its pipes for several years now with soda ash. This is to prevent overly acidic tap water from corroding mains and domestic pipes. The buffering is less than 20ppm (1 degree) of kh. This buffering has a higher effect in a pressurized water main with water saturated by pressure with oxygen. When released from the pipes this buffering often breaks down within a few hours, especially in an aquarium where animal wastes will readily degrade the effect of the buffer. If the tank is supposed to have a lower pH, add some acid buffer, vinegar, weak muriatic acid ... Whatever. But you should in most cases be adding more KH buffer anyway. 

They started to bring the pH up nearly 8 years ago with the end target being around a pH of 8-8.4 

There is something else going on in your tank. I add unaltered tap water to my breeding tanks, and have wild bristlenose, apistogramma urteagai and apistogramma trifasciata all reproducing without issue. I'm in coquitlam and Surrey is on the same source water grid. Please understand there is a lot more to water than the pH.


----------

