Crazy pH!

[vaw103]

The water softening unit is in my basement, so I'm assuming that it's only hooked up to the inside of the house. It's not a private well that I get the water from though, it's provided through my town, so I wouldn't be surprised if it goes through a treatment facility and gets chloramine added to it?

I'll start shifting over to the hose water How should I acclimate all the tanks? Should I just replace the water with hose water as I do regular water changes?

I just tested the pH of the water that I left sitting out. This is what I got:
Straight from the tap: 7.4
After two hours: 7.8
After 21 hours (I got a little impatient): That crazy magenta color.

So I don't have to test any of the decorations in my tanks, since the pH is really high with the aged water. So where do I go from here? Should I not do anything, because my fish are acclimated to the high pH? Or should I use chemicals to bring it down? I have a coupon (lol, yes. I'll buy almost anything if I have a coupon for it) for a product that jungle makes, it's little fizz tablets to neutralize pH. The box says that you add one tablet every week. Should I try that? Or should I get pH down?

[Oldfishlady]

The problem with using the products to lower the pH is that unless you also decrease the hardness of the water it will just rebound...you need to know the KH/GH to do this and then you will need to use R/O water cut with your tap water.

It is odd that the water is increasing pH as it sits-this make me think it is something in the environment itself.

If the fish are asymptomatic..I wouldn't do anything.....

You might see if your town has a website with more info on the well water

[vaw103]

I found the water quality reports of my town. It listed all of the different metals and chemicals we have in the water. It even mentioned a bacteria that was found. I guess I was wrong about the Chloramine, but it did say that there's 1.9ppm of Chlorine.

I've heard lots of good things about you, so I'm trusting your judgement that I don't have to do anything I'm really relieved though that it's nothing wrong with decorations I'm using in my tanks, it would have been expensive to replace all that!

Thanks again so much for helping me! I really, really appreciate it!!

[Olympia]

Asked this on the main forum and got this response from Byron, who knows quite a bit on the topic:
"In this situation, it is due to the out-gassing of CO2. Tap water has CO2 dissolved in it, in varying amounts depending where you are and how they treat the water and how far it travels. CO2 lowers pH by creating carbonic acid, just as happens if you diffuse CO2 into a planted tank. By letting the tap water stand 24 hours, the CO2 will dissipate out, and the pH will naturally rise accordingly, to its actual level. You can also shake it vbery briskly in a jar to out-gas the CO2. And you should always do either before testing pH, in order to get a more accurate reading--as you've seen, it changes.

A change from 7.4 to 9 is quite a bit, and I've no idea if this is solely due to the above or some other additive. Contacting your water folks on this may be advisable, it is good to know just what is in the water."
Posted via Mobile Device