How important is the alkalinity level in a freshwater aquarium with tropical fish?

T

TessaStarraphobia

New member
My alkalinity level is low (about 20-40 ppm)
Not sure if that's okay or not =/
Do I need to buy something to raise the level?

And btw I'm just cycling right now, so there's no fish yet.
 
It doesn't really matter because the fish at your lfs will be in your same tap water, so they were raised in that same level. I learned this the hard way when I struggled to lower pH for some rams & found out my pH (from the tap) was .1 lower than theirs. Frustrating obviously.
 
That's fine - just enough to keep the water stable.

Tropical fish are very tolerant of things like kh, gh, and ph, and messing with it is not worthwhile most of the time. Profiles of fish often show a ph - this is an estimation of the ph in their wild habitat. They are more tolerant of this though, and most of our fish are bred in captivity anyway.
 
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