My PH is not stable!!!!

I've recently been checking my PH, due to the death of my passed gold fish,, and so when i started getting into the whole complicated fish keeping i started testing it once week, and i've had to add some sort of chemical to lower the PH. And my PH has never been lower than 7.4, and i want it to be at 7.0.. It goes back up to 7.7 every week and i've had enough!!! please help! i don't know what to do..

INFO:

20l (5 gallons. i think)

9 neon tets.

1 betta

2 corys

1 pleco

no substrate

gravel

live plants

rock

drift wood!

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Comment by Peter on October 21, 2012 at 3:29pm: The ph down or any ph chemicals only keep modify the ph go like a week or less what u can do is collect rain water or use RO water or put a piece of drift wood in ur tank

Comment by Betta on October 22, 2012 at 5:28am: I did, i out drift wood.. but it still goes up to 7.7 seven and why rain water??

Comment by sherry on October 24, 2012 at 2:23pm: I agree. Chemicals won't help your ph problem. In order to lower your ph you have to soften your water. Rainwater and ro water will have little no hardness. Peat and driftwood will also soften your water, but if your driftwood is not leaching tannis, then it won't do you much good either. Cheapest route is rainwater and peat. If that doesn't get it low enough then try ro.

Comment by sherry on October 24, 2012 at 2:30pm: Food for thought, though. Most fish will acclimate to ph's up to 8.0 (even higher). What will kill them fast is constant fluctuation. I am not an expert on goldfish, but I keep angels. Angels in the wild are normally in ph's between 4.5 and 6.0. Some areas maybe higher or lower, but even wild caught angels can be slowly be stepped up to 6.5-7.0. I think some have stepped them up to above 7.8.

Ph going up and down is worse than high ph.

Comment by sherry on October 24, 2012 at 2:32pm: One last thing. What does it come out of the tap at? You may have something in your tank raising you hardness. Rock will do it.

Comment by Derick cotten on October 24, 2012 at 10:13pm: ya rocks can raise it. drift wood will help lower it.

Comment by Betta on October 26, 2012 at 3:08am: thanks a lot guys! and what peat?

Comment by GSP on October 28, 2012 at 2:49pm: Stop messing with the ph for no good reason. It is more harmful to mess with ph and have it flucuate than it is to just leave it and have a fish in a different ph water than they would be in in the wild. Wild fish adapt slowly but many fish are Tank bred and used to a wide variety of phs in captivity.

Comment by Robert Jango on October 29, 2012 at 3:23am: Goldfish like alkaline water and even "softwater" fish lead very normal, healthy lives in alkaline water. I'm starting to breed Discus so I use rainwater but even these notoriously difficult fish are being bred in water with 7.5 ph these days. There's nothing magical or special about neutral water. Stop adding chemicals in the water and enjoy your fishtank.