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Message: [QUOTE="callingcolleen1, post: 152790, member: 4209"] JW your pond water must be very very soft from all the rain. The average PH of rain is in the 3's, way to soft, so if you get lots of rain your PH may possibly fall below 7, or even 6. When the water is too soft the snails cannot rebuilt their shell and if you have snails in your pond, look at their shells, if they look white, show signs of corrosion, little "pit holes" in shell, then your water has long term soft issues. Now some plants love the water on the soft side, but it is better to keep the PH in the 7's for a balance between hard and soft. Just so their is no confusion, soft has a low PH, and hard has a high PH. with a PH above 8, their is a danger of ammonia, and with a PH below 6, fish have problem breathing. JW sounds like you got a system that works good, and partial water changes are nessarary when PH gets too low. Everybody's has different water coming out of their tap, and our tap water here on the prairies is very hard, too hard, so hard I hardly get any bubbles in my dish water! If the water is soft coming out of your tap you don't need as much soap in your dishwater to get bubbles. I would bet that your tap water is softer than mine up in those mountains!! Climate, water, and how your pond is set up all plays a big role in your pond. I don't change water cause here on the plains where we are zoned "semi arid" and rain can be scarce some months. The pond can evaporte quickly when we get the warm frequent winds, and our summers can be very hot and dry too, so changing the water not nessary so much as I am always adding water weekly. My very large six foot tall yellow flag Iris is a very large floating mat, and I suspect that thing take a a big drink in the summer to stay lush and green. All my big sedges takes big drinks, so their goes more water in the hot windy summer. Here is the fish tank in my bedroom that has very low PH, and houses the very old Upside down Catfish, who lives in the caves and his tank mates are all wild guppies. I need to do a small water change, that is all I every do once evey four months or so, no filter to clean, tank has only an undergravel filter and has live angle hair and a endless supply of duck weed. Need to thin out the plants too. Upsidedown Catifsh lives in caves and swims only upsidedown. I got this catfish in 1991!! You do the math! :) [/QUOTE]

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