Tap water parameters ottawa

[Gowalkitoff]

I live within ottawa and usually test my tap water 3 or 4 times a year.  Has anyone noticed it's really alkaline?  The highest it's ever been for me, around 8.3.  Seems to be no kh and mild GH, maybe 10. No nitrates this time. Has this been giving anyone grief?  It's upended things here a bit and become frustrating.  I bought acid buffer to help.

[HayleYoyo]

The guys at critter jungle talk about this all the time. I've actually called the city, and they had someone on charge of that call me back, it was cool actually.

My water comes out at 8.2ishph, but settles to 7.-7.5 after a day in a bucket.

Also, my kh ks always around 2-3dkh

[Gowalkitoff]

I have a 120 gal, so I am not letting water settle lol.  My tank isn't settling, none of them are. Having changed nothing, my tanks have all simultaneously been having crises beginning a few months ago and their ph is all 8.0 and up.  Ick on fish, plants dying, brown diatoms.  I know the city mixes liquid calcium chloride into their road salt/grit mixes, could that have raise tap water ph? Chemistry is my weakness.

[angelicbrat]

I switched to discus because they need soft water, I still have issues trying to hold the ph, which as you said starts around 8 but within 3-4 days will drop into the 6's.
i did resort to buying lanark county spring water just to have a little kh/gh but that's too costly in a 120! I have crushed coral in my filter and mixed in with my plants.

[Calico3]

I totally agree with angelic brat.  I too think our problems keeping fish in Ottawa is because of soft water . When I started fish keeping I was in , and still am in  love goldfish . I got multiple tanks and bought some extremely expensive stock hoping to breed.  None of these goldfish lived long mostly about 6-8 months and none ever had eggs.   I did very extensive research on keeping this type of fish before getting my  "Goldies " however did not learn then that they do best in hard water. I too had city of Ottawa water come and measure my PH wondering if there was a problem there. The ph was fine . My problem was that having done research on goldfish forums. I had learned that most keepers did very large water changes as they are very messy fish.  I was finding that after water changes I would soon lose fish .  Tried several other fish types as well and these were fish best kept in hard water. No success .

So I gave up on goldfish and did research and now keep in my largest 75 gallon tank, beautiful Angelfish and have in one 40 gallon really nice tetras. Both fish types do well with soft water.  I was told by the fish manager at Big's Al's ( Eddie ) not to do large water changes and to when doing a  water change to try not do more  then  25% . This has worked for me and if I have not watched closely enough have almost done 1/3. I have had Angelfish and my tetras for some years and did a little breeding.  At the beginning I placed carbonate to raise the hardness. However that is not done anymore . But I do admit to haven g sea shells in my tank which look nice and I hope help.    This has reduced my fish deaths . I now have little problems with my soft water fish.

I guess my feelings are do only small water changes. Then the fish do not go into sudden shock and die quickly. Good luck and hopefully things will improve.

I have recently learned about using Replenish and am now trying goldfish again . It helps restores and maintain GH and replenishes minerals. I have two smaller tanks with goldfish and when doing water changes use the product faithfully. I am stocking up as much as possible as because of covid I find that your LFS rarely carry the product. I now have kept goldfish safely for 3 months and hopefully after one year can be a confident
goldfish keeper again. It can be expensive to use on multiple tanks so I still have two soft water tanks.

[Gowalkitoff]

I have always a bag of crushed coral in my filter and done small water changes. The tap water ph for me is more alkaline than it used to be and my tank ph isn't staying as low as it used to. This all began in Dec.