Buffers...

[Fishy Lee]

So what's everybody's general opinion on buffers that set the water to specific temperatures? I have a african cichlid tank, and a community tank, which should be at pH levels of 8.2 and 7.0 respectively. Should I be using the buffers to keep the pH levels at the right level everytime I do water changes?

[craftyflalady]

In MY opinion, it is a bad idea to start using buffers to play with the water chemistry. Once you start playing with it, you loose the stablity of your water, and you either have to stay on top of it all the time, or your water can crash in no time flat.

Either keep fish that go with your water, or let your fish adjust to your water. But I would advise not messing with the PH. The Ph will adjust to the conditions of your tank naturally, but if you start adding stuff, it could crash either way which is much more dangerious to your fish.

[Chicklette]

I agree with Craftylady. You need to understand the water chemistry & make absolutely no mistakes or it could wipe out all your fish. I have Africans (Pea****s) in a pH of 7.5 and they are perfectly fine. They are really hardy and they will adjust. If you pH is unstable and extremely low you may want to look into using a buffer. When buffers are used you also need to watch your KH and GH because they will be affected as well. You might just want to look at putting some crushed coral, lava rocks, Texas holey rocks, ect in your tank or you can put some crushed coral in a mesh bag in your filter. That is much much safer. If your Africans are fine I wouldn't worry to much about it.

[SueM]

Morning Fishy Lee,
I use crushed coral in my africans, raises it up nicely with out haveing to use any chemicals.

[Georgia Peach]

Personally I advise to NEVER use chemicals.

[Cichlid Man]

Originally Posted by Fishy Lee

So what's everybody's general opinion on buffers that set the water to specific temperatures?

I think you meant to say:
"So what's everybody's general opinion on buffers that set the water to specific pH?"

First of all, what's your pH? If your community pH is say 6.5 or 7.5, then there's not much point in using a buffer, just keep the pH the way it is. You should only really use buffers if your tap water has an extreme pH and you want to keep fish with completely different pH demands. The best thing to do is just keep fish which live in a pH similar to your tap water. In my malawi/tanginikan tanks I just put a couple of kilos of tufa rock in them. I use peat in my softwater tanks.