[Worldwide Koi Club] New pond ph problem
Dear Dave,
I’m not an expert by any stretch of the imagination, but up here we’re told that anything between a measurement of 7.2 and 8.5 pH is considered acceptable. I also have been under the opinion that pH measurements are slightly elevated in the afternoon, but of course that wouldn’t apply to your tap water as it’s not exposed to sunlight.
That having been said, I have a friend who strains all his water through a layer of peat before adding it to his aquarium, but once again, that’s one heck of a lot of straining for a pond of your size. I guess the question to ask is, has anyone here ever tried to lower pH levels through the addition of vinegar? And how should one do that?
I will be glad to see what some of the suggestions are. There are all kinds of chemicals on the market for lowering pH levels and we have several here but I’ve never used them because I thought so long as our pH was under 9 that everything was fine. Now I’m wondering too.
Sincerely (but not very helpfully, I’m afraid), Brenda
On 31-May-08, at 8:03 PM, davewill001 wrote:
> Hi, > > I have had aquarium fish for many years, but just last Thursday > completed a project to convert my swimming pool to a Koi pond with a > waterfalls. I love it and have added 2 small Koi and 4 goldfish. Two > of the goldfish had been living in a 10 gallon aquarium for over a > year. One of them reached about 7 inches long. > > With that background, I want to ask the experts a question. I have a > test kit for measuring ph, phosphate, nitrite, and ammonia. > Everything is fine except the ph. It is over 8.0. My thought was > that since this is a new pond, the alkalinity was coming from the > rocks used in the waterfalls. However, I just measured my tap water > and it has a ph of nearly 8.0. I was considering doing water changes > every few days to reduce the ph, but with the tap water being so high, > that won’t help. So what should I do? Should I just hope the fish > will adapt? I have briefly seen only one of the Koi since I put the 2 > in the pond. One of the goldfish has gone into hiding none of the > fish will eat. They are hiding in the gaps between the bricks used to > raise the water lilies off the 4 foot deep bottom. By the way, the > pond holds 3700 gallons, so changing water is quite a big deal. > Should I consider reducing the ph chemically or just wait until nature > makes it acid? The medium in my filter is lava rock. In addition the > the 2 water lilies, I have Water Lettuce in the top of the filter, > some shallow water plants, and Hornwort for help with oxygenating the > pond. > > Thanks for any suggestions that anyone can give me. > > Dave W > > > ———————————— > > Yahoo! Groups Links > > >
Category: Philippines Internet Koi Society
