Using Waterlife pH 6.5 product

[Arnold]

Hi, I'm looking for a solution to make my ph in my dwarf cichlid tanks around 6.5. I don't have Ro water on hand. I've been using peat in the filters. But I've been advised of using a product called waterlife ph6.5 buffer, what's your thoughts?

 

[anewbie]

My vague understanding (@dw1305 can correct me) is that you can remove kh by converting it to salt; though this is probably even worse for the fish. At the end of the day ph is an artifiical number and what you want to do is remove kh from your water (and for that matter gh if your fishes are delicate). Don't go for the ph go for the softness of water.

Btw once you get the salts in your water from chemical conversion you then want to use an ro system to filter out the salt.

 

[MacZ]

But I've been advised of using a product called waterlife ph6.5 buffer, what's your thoughts?

I wouldn't use it.

In the end the pH is almost never the problem with dwarf cichlids, but the electric conductivity. Products like that usually contain different acids and buffers and both will raise the EC.

If your KH is under 5° you can get results for pH and KH with peat, but not with any such product. It will also not change conductivity.

If you really need low pH or want to go down with EC to a level that really makes a difference, go the extra mile via RO and use it as your main source water. It's physically and chemically the best practice.

My vague understanding (@dw1305 can correct me) is that you can remove kh by converting it to salt; though this is probably even worse for the fish. At the end of the day ph is an artifiical number and what you want to do is remove kh from your water (and for that matter gh if your fishes are delicate).

Plants do this in very hard water and crystalliize the minerals on their leaves.

Don't go for the ph go for the softness of water.

Agreed.

 

[Arnold]

Thankyou both so much for getting back to me with some really good advice. So what I'm trying to do is breed some German Blue Rams and Apistogrammas however, noone around my area does RO water that's the issue and I don't have room for a RO unit in my house unfortunately. Just wanna make the water softer to hopefully make them feel happier and breed

 

[MacZ]

You can get small units for about 50 €/£$ and you may possibly need adapters to your shower fauced for under 5€ extra and a 25-50 liter canister is inexpensive and doesn't take up much space. The units themselves take up as much space as a standard package of xerox paper and you can store it aside if not needed.

Just wanna make the water softer to hopefully make them feel happier and breed

Then either leave the experimenting with additives that make everything just more complicated and/or use RO. Simple as that, sorry to be so blunt, but I guess almost everybody here went through this. Me included.

 

[Arnold]

You can get small units for about 50 €/£$ and you may possibly need adapters to your shower fauced for under 5€ extra and a 25-50 liter canister is inexpensive and doesn't take up much space. The units themselves take up as much space as a standard package of xerox paper and you can store it aside if not needed.


Then either leave the experimenting with additives that make everything just more complicated and/or use RO. Simple as that, sorry to be so blunt, but I guess almost everybody here went through this. Me included.

Thanks for your help

 

[MacZ]

My pleasure!

I want people to succeed, but I also want to keep people from paying money for snakeoil or accidently killing their fish.

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

My vague understanding (@dw1305 can correct me) is that you can remove kh by converting it to salt; though this is probably even worse for the fish. At the end of the day ph is an artifiical number and what you want to do is remove kh from your water

I think these are "phosphate buffers", and I would be amazed if the weren't sodium phosphate based - <"https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/phosphate-buffer.9279/">.

They are worse than useless, and sold by companies that know this, but are entirely devoid of any moral compass or honesty.

Btw once you get the salts in your water from chemical conversion you then want to use an ro system to filter out the salt.

I think a good way to think about water and solutes is to thing of them like making "instant coffee". You start with water, and everything you add - coffee, milk, sugar gets you further away from the water you started with.

Cheers Darrel

 

[Ben Rhau]

My vague understanding (@dw1305 can correct me) is that you can remove kh by converting it to salt; though this is probably even worse for the fish.

It sounds like what you're saying is that you can neutralize KH with acid, which is true, but increases conductivity.

In the end the pH is almost never the problem with dwarf cichlids, but the electric conductivity. Products like that usually contain different acids and buffers and both will raise the EC.

^Yes, it is this. Soft water will have slightly acidic pH. What your fish want is the soft water, not the low pH. You can't soften water by adding something, only by diluting it.

 

[anewbie]

You can get small units for about 50 €/£$ and you may possibly need adapters to your shower fauced for under 5€ extra and a 25-50 liter canister is inexpensive and doesn't take up much space. The units themselves take up as much space as a standard package of xerox paper and you can store it aside if not needed.


Then either leave the experimenting with additives that make everything just more complicated and/or use RO. Simple as that, sorry to be so blunt, but I guess almost everybody here went through this. Me included.

This is an over simplification i think though it depends on the volume of water you need to produce. First there is maintance on ro unit primiarly in the form of membrane and filters. Then there is waste water to consider - the better units are more expensive but will be 1:1 or 1:2 (1 good 2 bad); the bad units as bad as 1:5. Of course if you only need 20 gallons a week then go cheap but if you need 1000 gallon a week put some research into the issue.

 

[anewbie]

It sounds like what you're saying is that you can neutralize KH with acid, which is true, but increases conductivity.

You can but you can also bind with the kh (or maybe it is gh) to form more complex elements - i was dealing with some information on hard water from a well (500+ tds) and how water softner work on them. I didn't take the time or had the desire to understand the chemistry of the claim but either way the end results still had to go through an ro membrane to remove all the crap.

When i was a kid and even more clueless then today i discover you could melt sodium (salt) and then apply electrical current to break apart the elements but we all know what happens when sodium is expose to air.

 

[MacZ]

This is an over simplification i think though it depends on the volume of water you need to produce. First there is maintance on ro unit primiarly in the form of membrane and filters. Then there is waste water to consider - the better units are more expensive but will be 1:1 or 1:2 (1 good 2 bad); the bad units as bad as 1:5. Of course if you only need 20 gallons a week then go cheap but if you need 1000 gallon a week put some research into the issue.

Rather an example on how you can do this with a budget of space and money. For most people those are the main hurdles, as many people lack a sense of what price and size is even considered worth it at all.

Of course it all depends on what you need, but let's be clear, the OP has mentioned in another thread the biggest tanks they own are under 200 liters and if I remember correctly the fish in question are in tanks under 100 liters.

 

[illumnae]

What's your source water like? I run a full sized 400gpd ro unit at home for my fish room, but at my office where I'm more space constrained and the toilet is far from my room where my desk tank is, I have a small canister with deionization resin that I use. It uses those 10 inch height x 4 inch diameter water softener canisters with a cartridge that I fill with deionization resin and replace when exhausted. I use a 2 canister unit but if you're really pressed for space you can use just 1. My 2 canister unit can deionize about 200L of tap water before I have to replace the resin, but my office tank is small and I change only about 10-20L per week so it lasts a few months between changes. My tap water comes out at tds 90, so if you have liquid rock as tap water then it may not be as efficient for you. Note that 0 tds pure water is not ideal for keeping livestock so you may want to mix a small amount of tap water back in or just use a remineralizer. I use a shrimp gh booster to put back gh but not kh. All I do is drain a pail of water from the tank, pour it away in the toilet then bring a filled pail back. I have a tiny pump that I put into the pail and run it through the deionization resin back into the tank. Everything gets stored back under my desk when done - the pump and filter fit into the pail for easy storage, especially if you use a single canister unit. The only minor inconvenience is that I run the pump slower to give the water enough contact time with the resin instead of just pouring the water in directly so it takes maybe 15 minutes instead of 30 seconds.

 

[anewbie]

This is mostly for @dw1305 and @Ben Rhau

A water softener for well water uses ion exchange to remove hard minerals (calcium and magnesium) and often iron, replacing them with sodium (not salt).

Alternatives: If you need a sodium-free option, you can use potassium chloride in the brine tank instead.

As hard water passes through a bed of resin beads covered in sodium, the magnesium and calcium ions (which have a stronger positive charge) stick to the resin, displacing the sodium into the water.

Bizzare stuff.

 

[anewbie]

Fascinating reading - you use a water softner prior to the ro membrane since sodium won't hurt the membrane as much as mg/ca - however and this is an open issue fishes require trace amounts of mg/ca even blackwater fishes and soften water has mostly sodium so does the food or final solution water have enough mg/ca left in it for the fishes ?

 

[Ben Rhau]

This is mostly for @dw1305 and @Ben Rhau

A water softener for well water uses ion exchange to remove hard minerals (calcium and magnesium) and often iron, replacing them with sodium (not salt).

Alternatives: If you need a sodium-free option, you can use potassium chloride in the brine tank instead.

As hard water passes through a bed of resin beads covered in sodium, the magnesium and calcium ions (which have a stronger positive charge) stick to the resin, displacing the sodium into the water.

Bizzare stuff.

Yup, I think where we're not syncing up is that we dont have the same concept of "adding" to the water. When I say "you can't soften the water by adding" I mean "adding" in the sense that it's now part of the water (i.e., dissolving in the water).

I don't consider an ion exchange resin "adding" to the water, but rather "treating" the water. Similar to how water passes through an RO membrane, the water must pass through the ion exchange resin to work effectively. Except, instead of being excluded by pore size, the ions in the water are selective adsorbed or desorbed to/from the beads.

A water softener for well water uses ion exchange to remove hard minerals (calcium and magnesium) and often iron, replacing them with sodium (not salt).

Sodium chloride (and sodium bicarbonate) are both salts.

Fascinating reading - you use a water softner prior to the ro membrane since sodium won't hurt the membrane as much as mg/ca - however and this is an open issue fishes require trace amounts of mg/ca even blackwater fishes and soften water has mostly sodium so does the food or final solution water have enough mg/ca left in it for the fishes ?

If your starting water is extremely hard, it would be economical to replace the Mg++ and Ca++ ions with sodium to avoid premature scaling of the RO membrane. As far as trace minerals, blackwater fish have mostly adapted to recover those minerals from food, but:

1. If you're starting with very hard water, it's unlikely that the output EC from your system will be zero anyway.
2. If it was, you could still choose to remineralize.

-B

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

This is mostly for @dw1305 and @Ben Rhau

A water softener for well water uses ion exchange to remove hard minerals (calcium and magnesium) and often iron, replacing them with sodium (not salt).

We actually have a "Kinetico" ion exchange unit at home, it gets through a lot of salt. Our tap water is fully saturated with calcium (Ca++) and bicarbonate (2HCO3-) ions, the water tastes lovely, but furs up showers etc really quickly.

It is "strong acid" ion exchange, so it doesn't change the anion (CO3-), the dKH. It works because sodium (bi)carbonate (Na(H)CO3 is soluble. You get two sodium ions (Na+) exchanged for every calcium (Ca++) ion.

Alternatives: If you need a sodium-free option, you can use potassium chloride in the brine tank instead.

I believe that potassium chloride (KCl) is a lot more expensive in the UK compared to the USA, you also need more KCl than NaCl.

Cheers Darrel