Clown loach PH concern

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spiff

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Dec 27, 2007
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Can anyone verify the sensitivity Clown loaches have to high PH? I finishing up a giant loach tank, but my tap water is at 9.0. I called around and all the stores will keep them in 7-7.5 PH conditions. The tank will have a drip system so there won't be large water changes.

My main question is: can Clown loaches be slowly acclimated to high PH water and still be happy loaches?

When I bring them home, I'll have the tank water matching that from the store they came from. But with the drip system in place, the PH will always be raising, albeit very, very slowly. Should I just keep adding acid a couple times a week and keep the the PH around 7.5? Or see what happens if I let the system slowly raise?

If anyone else has clown loaches I would really appreciate your input on this.

TIA
 
I think with most soft water fish a sudden change in pH is much worse than a constant higher pH. I would drip acclimate to the pH of 9 if its your only choice between the 2. Otherwise I would invest in a ton of driftwood to buffer the pH down to at least 8. I know when I worked at poopsmart our pH was about 9, but the loaches still stayed alive for the most part. Sometimes we lost a couple, but they were usually the unhealthy looking pale ones.
 
Cool.. that's good to know. (and was hoping to hear) Thank you. I'm thinking for the long run, getting them up to my tap-water's default PH is best...

I was concerned that clown loaches might have been one of these PH sensitive species that I hear about...
 
High pH will not work in the long haul. You risk organ damage, and the fish will most likely be pale and stressed.
 
That is a very high pH.

Not only that but with that high a pH you probably have high TDS and very hard water, so I doubt this will work in the long run.
 
Doh! I was afraid of that. Okay. Guess I'll err on the safe side and just plan on adjusting PH as needed. I was already planning on lots of floating wood junk, for cover and to defuse the light a bit. Hopefully that does effect the PH in a good way and will cut down on what I need to add chem-wise to the water.

Oh yeah.. and you're right..got hard water too.
 
spiff;1491952; said:
Doh! I was afraid of that. Okay. Guess I'll err on the safe side and just plan on adjusting PH as needed. I was already planning on lots of floating wood junk, for cover and to defuse the light a bit. Hopefully that does effect the PH in a good way and will cut down on what I need to add chem-wise to the water.

Oh yeah.. and you're right..got hard water too.
Click to expand...

You are gonna have a REAL hard time, if not impossible, adjusting the pH into a good range when it's already 9 and you probably have high buffering. Driftwood and peat may not even do anything for you, and chemicals are a BAD idea.

If you really want to give it a shot I would suggest doing what I do and mixing with RO water, or aging in a barrel and adjusting from there with RO water and something like peat.

Adjusting pH up isn't all that hard, but adjusting it down from such a high number will be pretty hard if you don't use RO.

Either way you are going to almost have to use water aging barrels or else your pH is going to bounce back up every time you do a water change which is worse.

I just noticed you mentioned a drip system too, which means if you're dripping directly from tap you're never gonna get it down.
 
What is RO water?

I was just thinking of getting the PH into at least 8's or high 7's... but yes, I agree, trying to change a whole much less two points of PH is going to be tough.

I was kind of hoping that 8 would be good enough....

I'll give up on keeping clown loaches before I circumvent my drip system, even though they were the reason for building this tank. My plan is to keep around 6 or so loaches in a 140g to slowly acclimate them from the water conditions from the store to the conditions in my main tank.

Really had my heart on a school of 12-20 clowns.....
 
oh yeah.. i am able to adjust PH okay the way it is.... It takes about 3 tbls of PH down (acid) to change PH one point in my 140... that doesn't seem like too much chem for the volume, does it?
 
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