ph for pacus

Question
I have a pacu I just love. I have noticed when I did a water test my ph was 6.0. I have been told that I should raise the Ph. what do you think. I also have been thinking of building him a large pond out side I know I will need A large heater in the winter.I live in ga do you think he would live well outside in a pond

Answer
Hi Pete
For the ph, it's usually not recommended to adjust it.  If you don't know what you're doing, and you don't buffer the water along with it, the ph will end up crashing or rising dramatically back to where it was originally.  This can stress or kill your fish.  Most fish can handle ph from 6.0-8.0 just fine.  So I'd recommend leaving it alone.  Just curious though, do you know what it usually reads?  Sometimes if there's a lot of uneaten food or waste accumulated in the substrate, or frequent water changes aren't done, this will lower the ph as well.  You can try testing your tap water and see what the ph is to give you an idea.  Put some tap water in a glass, test it, let it sit out at least 12 hours and retest it.  That's pretty much what you can expect to happen in your tank.  Now, there's also stuff in the tank that can alter ph, driftwood for example can lower the ph.

For the pond....it's a good idea.  But, I don't know what your winter temps are like.  I know when I lived in Florida(south west coast)we'd get a few cold days in the upper 30's here and there.  I know Georgia is a bit mild too, but I don't think the pacu could handle those temps.  There's no way I can think of that a heater would sufficiently keep the pond at a 70+ F temp constantly. With the open water, the heat will just escape out.  

The only thing, and I can't say for sure on this, just a guess here, I've thought it myself but never checked into it, so don't know if it would work....they make some kind of temporary green houses.  Green houses for plants keep the heat and moisture in, if the temporary ones can keep the temp in the mid 70 F range, that might work.  Just put it up around the pond during the cooler months.  You don't want a permanent one, that kind of defeats the purpose of having a pond to enjoy.  But that's also another option-the permanent one.

Something else to think about, if you have a basement, I've seen pictures where people have built a pond in the basement.  Or, if you're house is on a concrete slab and you have the room in the house, anywhere would work.  

Another option, get a very large fish tank.  I found a site(there's lots more out there also) on DIY building your own large tank.  But, if you don't have a concrete slab under the house, I'd make sure the floors can hold a large(250+ gallon) tank.  Here's a forum for pacus, not very busy though lol, but the 2nd question about 2 pacus has the DIY link:

http://www.fishlore.com/Forum/index.php?board=118.0

And here's a link with some basic info on them:

http://www.fishlore.com/profiles_red_pacu.htm

Hope that helps and good luck!  Let me know what you end up doing too!

Christy