Acidic Water

[MHEAD]

For water changes, I age my tap water for 2 days to 2 weeks in plastic, one gallon jugs and the ph is 7.0 and the water is very soft and the kh very low. Is there any safe way to lower the ph to 5.0-6.0 before I use it or is a RO unit the only solution? As it is, I have to use alot of Malaysian driftwood to keep the ph down. Thanks.

 

[fishgeek]

have a quick search under peat on this forum, you will find many differening ways of using it's natural acids to lower pH

if your water is very soft then it should be easy to achieve

if your kH is less than 4 you may have some issue's with a tendency for the pH to drop even lower than you wished

andrew

r/o is not really a lot different to very soft or low mineral contetn water, so you should be able to achive what you want without needing to invest in r/o

 

[Triadtropz]

with the water being very soft doesnt the ph drop when you add it to the tank?..

 

[MHEAD]

After a month to 2 months, the acidity level lessens which I attribute to the age of the driftwood I use and the addition of the 7.0 water I add with each water change. What do you think? I will also check into the use of peat as suggested earlier. Thanks, Tom

 

[fishgeek]

tank water that tends to drop in pH is because of the nitrogen cycyle tending to produce some acidic by products ... if water changes are regular these are removed and replace by fresh water at what ever parameters that maybe

wood will leach natural acids, much like peat and leaves will
after a time these acids will have been depleted from the wood and so any tendency to acidify the water will lessen

when using things like peat i tend to suggest doing so in a water butt/tank/large bucket(rubber maid for the americans- although that always seems a bit kinky to my ears) so that any chnages in pH occur outside of the fishes enviroment and the tank is more stable at whatever level you wish

andrew

 

[MHEAD]

Andrew, from what you said and what I have read in other posts in this forum, it appears that I should reduce the ph of the water I will use for water changes before putting it into my tanks. What are your thoughts about using either Kent Black Water Expert or Tetra Black Water Extract and putting it into my galllon jugs of water that I use for water changes? As for peat, I have read about it but I am unaware of what form it comes in or where to buy it. I did find some Keta Peat Nuggets for sale--is this the peat everyone talks about ? Tom

 

[ed seeley]

Peat is cheaper! And IMO it does similar things to these additives. Just buy a bale of peat from a garden centre, but make sure it is pure peat, not multipurpose compost or contaning any fertilisers or other additives. I've a 50l bag of Shamrock Irish peat I only use for my tanks. All I do is put a bag full in my external filter. If you want to reduce the pH further you can boil some peat to make a peat extract liquid apparently, but I've never needed to do this.