• Hello guest! Are you an Apistogramma enthusiast? If so we invite you to join our community and see what it has to offer. Our site is specifically designed for you and it's a great place for Apisto enthusiasts to meet online. Once you join you'll be able to post messages, upload pictures of your fish and tanks and have a great time with other Apisto enthusiasts. Sign up today!

Water, PH, and hardness?

indyplanted

New Member
Messages
71
Location
Indianapolis,Indiana
There are a few things that I have questions about pertaining to my water.
The Ph from my RO is 7.7 and tds is reading 190.
My tap water is liquid rock. Ro filter is less than 2 months old and is flushed a few times a week. I have a Milwaukee PH controller on my planted tank and it always about 7.2 when I stick probe in RO water. I bought a Hanna instruments combo meter today and was shocked at how off my Ph controller was and how high the Ph actually was in most of my tanks. So much so that I went ahead and calibrated both instruments shortly after to make sure there wasn't a false reading or calibration error. both were fine and calibrated to 7.0. i have recently been aging 50 gallons of RO in peat and the reading from it was in the 4 when I measured it today.

couple of questions:
-Is this the way I should be dropping the PH while keeping the TDS down to? -Should my TDS and or PH be lower out of my RO?

Thanks, -Bradley
 

Mike Wise

Moderator
Staff member
5 Year Member
Messages
11,202
Location
Denver, Colorado, U.S.A.
Your R/O unit should at least produce a pH near or below 7.0 and <50 ppm TDS. I personally would check the flow rate/pressure of your unit. If the pressure is too great, minerals normally filtered by the membrane will pass through/around. Filtering soft water of any type through peat will drop both the pH and hardness, so your results there are normal. The amount of decrease depends mostly on KH values for pH and both GH & KH for hardness.
 

indyplanted

New Member
Messages
71
Location
Indianapolis,Indiana
I took off my DI cartridge. I think that it maybe be spent and leeching minerals back into the water. The unit is a 50gpd so it might have to much pressure behind it. Unfortunately the unit doesn't have a pressure gauge. Thanks for the tip. I'm just shocked by how high the TDS is with a newer membrane. -Bradley
 

Members online

Forum statistics

Threads
17,915
Messages
116,201
Members
13,027
Latest member
tonc61

Latest profile posts

Josh wrote on anewbie's profile.
Testing
EDO
Longtime fish enthusiast for over 70years......keen on Apistos now. How do I post videos?
Looking for some help with fighting electric blue rams :(
Partial updated Peruvian list have more than this. Please PM FOR ANY QUESTIONS so hard to post with all the ads poping up every 2 seconds….
Top