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I have heard so many times people saying that they keep their water neutral so they can keep both African and American cichlids, it’s true fish will live in water conditions/parameters which are very different to their natural, but the long term effects on the fish is usually fatal.
Every fish or more to the point every living creature develop their biological nature to live in the conditions they are found, their immune systems are probably the most important factor here, immune systems in living creatures have taken hundreds of thousands of years to develop, and it is these immune systems that ward of the pathogens that are found in their natural environment,
By keeping fish in ph levels which are out side it’s natural you are subjecting that fish to a whole new set of pathogens which are not usually found in it’s own environment, for example there are bacteria which are gram negative and thrive in alkaline water, these bacteria cause cotton fungus, while also found in slightly acidic water the disease factor is far less frequent in ph less than 6.7 so keeping fish which are found in the Amazon basin where the ph levels have been recorded as low as 4.8 and putting that fish in a fish tank with ph levels of 7.5 is almost certainly sentencing that fish to death.
I have heard the argument that fish have been tank bred for many years and now can live in ph levels far out side their natural, again this is true but 30 years of tank breeding can not and will not give that fish a whole new immune system and it is this that is the issue not the actual ph of the water.
So before you stock you fish tank take some time to research the conditions that the fish you want to keep need and cater for the needs of the fish you keep.
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