Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

My name is John and I am three months into this experiment.
I have two IBC tanks currently that are working great, will get into those issues later.
My current concern is as follows... I started with gold fish in the ibc's with moderate success.
I currently have about 10-15 goldfish in each tank. Every week to ten days I have to take a dead
one out. I attribute that to the large temp swings we have had here 30 deg F to 75 deg F Jan Feb Mar. I took some water from both IBCs and started a fish tank as a precaution. Ordered 25 fingerlings (blue tilapia) and within four hours all were dead but two. Since then I have now purchased a 55 gal tank filtered the tap water for aprox 10 days. My second order of Talapia have been doing fine. I have a water test kit and a ph test pen
which brings me to my point. My tap water is city water which I believe is soft water but the ph is high at 8.8.
I have seen a rise in the ph to 9.2 over the past couple of days. I panic'd and bought some ph decreaser sulfuric acid and have dosed the tank for four days. The ph hasn't moved a bit. I went out and purchased a
Reverse osmosis water filter and began small water changes aprox 5-6gals at a time. Had some initial success when ph went to 8.5 thought I was resolving the problem. This morning the ph is back to 8.8.
I have searched and read solutions with vinigear, driftwood, etc. I am so frustrated it forced me to enter
the forum world, and let me tell you this is a first for me.
Anyway I have stopped the ph decreaser as one of the goldfish in the tank died just before the RO water changes. The fish have slowed down consciderably and I believe they are stressed. I am going down to petsmart to get some driftwood and see if that will help, but I think that is a slow process.
I will post this for hopefully some support, and maybe some help with the IBC's after a little more tests to see if if will resolve those so I can transport the fish into those tanks. These suckers grow like crazy.
Thanks in advance for your assistance and this helpful forum

Update: I went the route of reverse osmosis water changes. I set up a small tank and put RO water in it and a air stone.
Have done a couple of small water changes and have the ph down to 8.4 in about 12hrs today. So Iam making progress
I think.
Seems the tap water Iam have available is high ph. I assume this will resolve itself over time with the water changes and the RO. Will the tanks eventually come down in ph or is this a issue I will deal with long term.