Is Seachem's Neutral Regulator safe for Loaches?

[tosto]

It says it "adjusts PH to neutral from either a low or a high pH, softens and conditions, and removes chlorine, chloramine and ammonia"

"Contains phosphate buffers and conditioning salts."

I don't have a planted tank, nor do I have problems with algae, so I don't think the phosphate will be an issue, but has anyone used this product safely with loaches? (I have two YoYo loaches in a 20g tank).

Thank you.

[chris1932]

If you use it you will grow algea like you have never seen in your life. I used to use it and after having to boil rocks and wood to remove hiar and bacterial algea I switched to AgraMilK. No more phospate no more algea. No swinging pH.
In a 30 gallon tank it took 18 40% water changes to get the phospate under 1mg/l, after that fiasco I will not use it anymore.

[cybermeez]

I use it in my 150g Loach tank and have had no problems.

[qumqats]

A lot of people don't like to put ANY chemicals in their tank. The more tweaking, the more chance of things getting messed up.

If the tank is running well you shouldn't need to add anything.

Why are you so worried about the PH being off? Is it ouside of the range of the fish in your tank?

[cybermeez]

A lot of people don't like to put ANY chemicals in their tank. The more tweaking, the more chance of things getting messed up.

If the tank is running well you shouldn't need to add anything.

Why are you so worried about the PH being off? Is it ouside of the range of the fish in your tank?

To a certain extent this is true, but it's not as simple as the tank "running well".

There are many factors that come into play. One of the biggest, and something an aquarist has little control over, is the hardness of the water supply. The softer the water the more likely you are to have an unstable pH. The natural life processes in any tank add to the acidity of the water and can serve to accelerate a decline in pH. To complicate matters further, if the water is hard the types of dissolved minerals have an impact on the stability of the acid/base balance.

In general, Loaches tend to be more sensitive to pH swings than other species of fish. Buffers can be a simple way of ensuring you don't have such swings, and Seachem makes one of the best buffers on the market IMO.

Also, the phosphates in the buffer in themselves don't cause algae blooms. The amount of light, iron, silica and other minerals in the water all impact whether or not you are prone to having algae problems.