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Re: pH of tank water



> Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1998 13:12:25 -0500 (CDT)
> From: Charles Harrison <csharrison at primary_net>
> 
> Does anybody's fresh water fish tank water have a pH of 9 or higher??
> This is just the topic I am responding to.
> And just how do you keep the tank water at this pH?

Some people get water like this out of the tap.  One of the posters
on the cichlid list has tap water at pH 9+.  Amazingly, she can keep
plecos happy at this pH.  

Most people with rift lake cichlids try to keep the pH over 8.  If you 
have a lot of limey materials in the tank and reasonably hard water to 
start with, the tank will equilibrate to about 8.2-8.4.  Baking soda
will get you there too.  Some purists aim higher for Lake Tanganyika
fish.

Btw, there's a tilapiine cichlid that lives at pH 10.5+ in spring outlets
running into Lake Natron in eastern Africa.  Lake Natron has a pH of 11
and sodium carbonate forms a crust over much of the surface.

I think we've gotten rather far from the topic of live foods.