ok well my ph for my tank is around 8.0 and its a cackatoo breeding tank. since they lay eggs i heard they need about 6.8 for a ph. i have some ph down stuff but the bad thing is its from 10 years ago. should i just buy a new kit just to be safe? i got half gallin of water and added a drop of ph down to it because thats what it said on the label. it made the ph go down to 6.2 and i dont want it to be that low. if i can use it i have a 10 gallon tank and it says 2 drops per gallon. instead of 20 drops should i add like 10. i dont want it to go down that much. should i buy new ph stuff or just do 10 drops or 20 drops? plz respon 10 points to best answer

Don't use PH down. It wears of and the PH will just rise again causing a HUGE spike in PH because you will change it radically from one end to the other. I would get Peat moss and put it in your filter. Take out the Carbon though. You need a long term solution not a band aid fix. You could also use RO water.

Rick is absolutely correct about them needing more than ten gallons. I told you this in your other question. Only if you fix the size and PH your fish will not breed.

If you don't understand how to bring the pH down with chemicals, How do you expect to keep it low? Usually a high pH tank will have a lot of carbonate hardness, and that will buffer the tank and keep the pH stable where it is. If you don't have the carbonate hardness, your pH will be fluctuating all over the place, and that is far worse for your livestock than simply having a pH that is not optimal.

Why is the pH high? Is it coming out of the tap alkaline? Do you have something in the tank that is driving it up?

The page I linked below says the pH can be between 5.0 and 7.0, so the 6.2 is just fine for this fish. However, I would also point out that the Cockatoo Cichlid (Apistograma cacatuoides) requires a tank significantly larger than ten gallons.

pH down wont fix your problems. The Only ingredient in it is Battery (sulphuric) Acid. Your pH is high because of mineral salts dissolved in the water.(hardness) By using "pH Down", sure you will force the pH lower, but now you have hard low pH water that's even worse for the fish than when you started, plus the pH wont be stable.

What you need to do is correct the hardness issue, and about the only practical way to do that is find a new source of water, either Reverse Osmosis filtered, or rainwater. Mix that with your hard tap water, and your hardness and pH will both naturally come down. Adjust the ratio to get the pH / hardness you want.

Or trade the fish for a species that do like hard water, African Shell Dwelling Cichlids would like those conditions, and can actually live in a 10gal as well.

Ian