Ph Problem

[koifishgirl]

Hi I found out what was causing the bad places on my koi today hi ph. 9.0
I put some baking soda in the pond this morning and checked again tonight but ph is still 9.0 my koi are staying at bottom of pond and not swimming around, they will still eat but are not quit as aggressive as they should be about eating. I dont know why I did not think to check water quality, everything else is ok. What can I do to bring the ph back down, to 7.5? What is the best products for this. I have never had a ph problem in my pond before that I know of.

I dont want to loose my koi.

[kingkong]

Baking Soda is used when pH crashes to like 5.5 or lower. Add about 1 teaspoon per 5-10 gallons of water. This makes pH RISE in numbers not DROP . I think you need to add somethind acidic to get down to 7.0. Alkalosis is hard to reverse once it occurs. I would do a high % water change but do not change pH too fast, go slow say 8.5 then 8.0 . Good Luck

[dOHd]

Our PH here runs naturally 9-9.2 all the time. Not what I would call perfect water, but.....

As for problems with fish because of a higher PH, I dont understand what problems you are seeing. Describe "bad places".

As for them not eating as aggressively as usual, the weather here is changing. Not getting cold mind you, but changing. And with that comes a large change in the eating habits. Usually they eat at least 10 handfulls a day within seconds. Now two a day and it floats for a while before it is totally gone.

Dont jump to conclusions.

d Ps King, The way I understood chemistry, if you have something with a Ph of 9 and add something with a Ph of 8.4, the chemical you added will bring the Ph down. AT least that is the way things were when I was in school. And that was a looonggg time ago.

[koifishgirl]

What about vinegar to bring it down?

[dOHd]

that will fur sure bring it down.



d

[marco]

Hi Koifishgirl, as long as you don't have ammonia in your water, a high pH value is not too dangerous. Koï can live between 5 and 10 but the ideal value is between 6.8 and 7.5. If your ph is high, ammonia can be really toxic.

Anyway if you change your pH too fast, that is a real stress for the koï, you should not change more then 0.5 degree per day !! so don't change it too fast.

To bring the pH down you can proceed to water change with ground water, source water or better, rain water.
If you want to use acid, add hydrochloric acid , you should find that in a pharmacy, I don't know about vinager wich is acetic acid.
Maybe a bad white acid wine will enjoy your koï too ..
Marco

[kingkong]

Quote: Originally Posted by dOHd Our PH here runs naturally 9-9.2 all the time. Not what I would call perfect water, but..... As for problems with fish because of a higher PH, I dont understand what problems you are seeing. Describe "bad places". As for them not eating as aggressively as usual, the weather here is changing. Not getting cold mind you, but changing. And with that comes a large change in the eating habits. Usually they eat at least 10 handfulls a day within seconds. Now two a day and it floats for a while before it is totally gone. Dont jump to conclusions. d Ps King, The way I understood chemistry, if you have something with a Ph of 9 and add something with a Ph of 8.4, the chemical you added will bring the Ph down. AT least that is the way things were when I was in school. And that was a looonggg time ago.

Wow, you are right. Baking Soda, as a buffer, tends to cause acid solutions to become more alkai and to cause alkai solutions to become more acidic bringing both solutions to a stable pH around 8.1 which is slightly basic since bs is an alkai. So it is a buffer to help stabilize pH swings, so no harm done there. You have a good memory!

[REC]

KFG,

Water chemistry, especially in a closed pond system with dynamics changed constantly by fish load and green plant life is complicated. For a long time, conventional wisdom said that if we added baking soda (pH 8.4) to raise our KH or buffering levels to low pH ponds, that the pH would immediately go to 8.4. And we also said that if you added baking soda to high pH ponds, the pH would drop to 8.4. Well, this does happen but when it does, it is dumb luck. The nuance of water chemistry that we do not factor in often enough is the effect of mineral hardness (GH) levels on the buffering capacity and effects of buffers on the water chemistry. Instead of going through a long tutorial on it here, let me invite you to the Best of KoiVet forum on koivet.com so you can read two threads of significance on the subject. The first is a thread about KH and buffering by Ken Austin. And the second we affectionately call the "Mystery Thread" which provides very detailed explanations of the science of buffering and the chemistry involved. The thread has also been "translated" for those of us who slept through chemistry class. So, read and enjoy.

But, in the interest of helping here, let me offer a couple of comments:

1. The pH of a particular pond is going to be what it wants to be, whether that is 7.4 or 9.0. There are so many factors that affect pH levels that trying to change them with chems or magic cures is impractical.

2. Stick to the basics... maintain KH and GH levels around 100 or so and good filtration and the water will adjust to where it wants to be. It is far more important to have the water chemistry stable than "perfect." If your pond pH settles out at 9.0, the fish will adjust to it and thrive.

Hope this helps.

REC

[koifishgirl]

HI Rec, problem is, the koi are not adjusting, they are sick, all the koi have red sores on them, took them out yesterday and gave them a long salt bath and put meds on the places. I check my ph this morning after adding baking soda and it is at 7.5 so if it stays that way Im in luck, only problem with ph is I have never been able to stablelize when it starts going up and down.

I also treated the pond with a parasite med, so if parasites are the problem, which it might be I hope I killed them. first year I have had a problem, and everytime I have check my ph in the past was very good, did not think to check, but with hi ph and parasite problems, my koi are having a difficult time.

The first koi that I worked on, he is in a different pond and now is recovering well, I did not realize that the other koi were in bad shape to. Fins red also.

I had planned to put some vinager in the water this morning, took a gallon of my pond water that was 9.0 and add one teaspoon of vinager and it brought it down to 6.0 , I have never used this before and wanted to give it a try. If it happens again I will try the vin.

Judy

[REC]

Judy,

Adding vinegar is going to do nothing but make your water quality worse. Of sure, it might work in the short term (very short) to bring the pH down, but without the proper buffering and mineral content in the water, the pH level will jump back up again in no time... and this will make the fish worse.

Please post your KH and GH readings and let's go from there. Also, if you have a parasite problem, the changing water quality will contribute to the stress on the fish and allow the parasites to damage the fish. But it all starts with water quality...

REC