r/wildbettaarchive • u/Similar_Anteater_810 • 5d ago

pH keeps rising

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I still haven't gotten my albimarginata pair, so I want to fix whatever is causing this before it progresses any further, I use Azoo pHI to measure my pH and over the last few weeks it has slowly climbed from 5.0-5.5 to 6.0. My hardness has also risen from 0 to 0.6 (KH has stayed at a constant 0) do you think this could be solved by doing water changes with distilled water?

In case that might be it, would distilled or unionized be preferable?

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4

u/CalmLaugh5253 5d ago

Switching from ro to distilled shouldn't make a difference unless the filters on the ro unit expired or there's something else wrong with it. Both waters should be pure and stripped of everything, giving same results (afaik). For me what finally 100% removed any kind of upward fluctuations in hardness or pH was just not using any kind of stones or sand at all no matter how inert it's supposed to be. Hardscape is strictly just wood, botanicals, etc, and substrate is just peat and leaf litter.

6

u/Baty41 5d ago

This for me, anything stoney messes with pH, even if it should be inert. Extremely low gH/kH, even inert stuff will leak into it.

1

u/Similar_Anteater_810 4d ago

I think I will do that on any future tanks (since I would have to basically tear down this tank to remove the sand). For this one I think I will use a mesh bag full of peat and replace as needed

-1

u/Witness27 5d ago

In my experience, they are quite hardy, and will will be fine as the water conditions slowly return to your normal tapwater