fix PH once and for all

[apistoguitarra]

Ok, I've heard so many different ways of lowering ph I'm just not sure which one to apply. So I'm asking for everyone's honest opinion on the best way to lower ph (other than R/O). I was thinking about doing a poll, but there are so many different ways, I know I'd leave one out. So everyone voice their opinion whether it's been stated already or not.

Oh, and those of you who wish to do so, please leave a description of the process that you go through of whatever method you suggest.

David

 

[Discus Man]

How hard is the water you are talking about?

I mean, if its soft water but a high pH then peat filtration or injected co2 is a breeze. If we are talking about hard water with a KH of 7 or more, then you won't find a sure bet and you will get conflicting opinions on what works and what doesn't.

 

[apistoguitarra]

My Gh is about 8 and my ph comes out the faucet at 7.4 and works it's way up to almost 8.

What would you do with a bare-bottom breeder tank with a sponge filter in it?

David

 

[aspen]

>>'My Gh is about 8 and my ph comes out the faucet at 7.4 and works it's way up to almost 8.'

your ph is 'almost 8' then.

i have bred quite a few soft water species, and have come to the realisation that ph is not what is important, the hardness of the water is what you should be concerned with. how soft you need will depend on what species you want to keep, and whether you want them to breed or not. many species can be kept in my tapwater, which is similar to yours, (gh 8, kh 4, ph 7.8 - 8.0) but breeding is not very productive ime. i have had pretty good success breeding discus, but not with apistos in this water.

soft water is created when you remove the hardness- period. the most inexpensive option available is to use r/o. i can buy it from my local grocery store for 3 bucks can (2.10 u.s.) per 5 gal jug. buying a small r/o cuts the cost, and larger ones are more efficient. i HAVE found that the best way to make water changes easy on the fish is to store it and aerate it for 24 hours first though.

hth, rick

 

[apistoguitarra]

So, do you run an R/O unit on a large separate tank and then do water changes from that tank?

Do you know what causes the ph to change hours after the water has been poured from the tap? Just curious.

Thanks,
David

 

[cootwarm]

Hi Rick & David,

My tap water measures out the same as yours almost exactly. I have good luck using peat moss to both lower the pH and soften it as well. I use a method that Matt (farm41) described to me. It works great. It's easy, effective, predictable, and minimal mess.

Use a 30 gallon plastic barrel. Put in a 5 gallon bucket of pure Canadian Sphagum Peat Moss and fill the remander of the barrel with tap water (treated if necessary). Aeriate with an air stone for a couple days then skim off any peat moss still floating. After about 3 days the peat water pH is about 4.5; and KH about 1; and GH is 2-4. I then mix this 'tea' with treated tap water to acheive the desired pH.

The peat water has a slight yellow tint that becomes very faint after a few days. I turn off the air stone a couple hours before I siphon it to allow most suspended particles to settle. There will still be a few peat particles in the water, but the tank filter will remove it after a couple hours. This doesn't appear to harm the fish, but to the contrary, when I add fresh peat water to an apisto tank, they act very excited and seem to display their colors more frequently.

I only use peat water to spawn certain species that seem to prefer it.

Michael

 

[apistoguitarra]

Thanks for the help Michael. I'm not quite ready to spring a couple hundred bucks for a R/O system right now so I'll definetely try that. Where do you usually get the peat moss from.......and the huge barrell?

Thanks again,
David

 

[cootwarm]

I get the peat moss from the garden center. Just mske sure tht it's Canadian Sphagum Peat Moss.

The barrel is just a standard plastic 30 gallon trash barrel.

Michael

 

[chapman76]

The method Michael describes is what I am attempting to do right now. My starting PH is between 7-7.5 and my GH is 8. Over the course of 2 weeks I have been able to get my PH down to 6.5 and my GH down to 4. It works great.

The one thing I do differently is I just throw the peat moss in a pillowcase to help keep all the particles contained and I let it run for like a week. It works great. I also keep a spare container so I can empty it out and start another one while that using the first batch.

Good luck

PS: I'm trying to breed A. Nijsseni so that's why I'm trying to get it down to a PH in the 5's and a GH of 1 or 2.

 

[apistoguitarra]

What's the purpose of the airstone? Just curious.

David

 

[cootwarm]

The airstone just aerates the water. For some reason the pH changes after water has more oxygen in it.

Michael

 

[aspen]

>>'The airstone just aerates the water. For some reason the pH changes after water has more oxygen in it.'

when you pour water from the tap, it has dissolved gasses in it. after aerating, this ph reading is said to be it's 'resting ph'. my resting ph is almost 8. this is the actual ph of my water. however, i have found that a small pump left running at the bottom of my reservoir (my spare 90 gal tank) will age the water more quickly than an airstone, and so i don't aerate my holding tank. i use this water, plain tapwater with no other additives, like prime etc, and find it to be sufficient, because i don't have any chloramine in my water supply. i simply pump it to my other tanks and have good success with just keeping for grow-out purposes of my softwater species

when i am trying to breed fish, i usually don't need to store a lot of r/o, and usually have only a couple of 10 - 29 gal tanks running, so i use a 10 gal reservoir. i have tried peat and many other additives (acids etc) on my tapwater, and have found that it is almost impossible to maintain a steady ph without cutting it with r/o, to reduce the hardness first. your tapwater may be more easy to control, as many others seem to find. with the species i've bred, (discus, a. borelli, a. cacatuoides, rams, etc) simply cutting my tap is sufficient. i have 2 pairs of a. elizabethae which i'm growing out now (still with my tapwater) and will see if peat is necessary to get them to spawn. imo the real reasons to use 'special water' is to get them to spawn, have lots of viable eggs, and to raise their babies in a decent male to female ratio to subadult to be sold as good healthy fish. you need to think of the buyer of your fish from the first effort to condition the fish to the end when breeding your fish which are ultimately for sale.

rick

 

[cootwarm]

Hi Ron,

Have you ever tested your peat water for ammonia?

I've found that a week is usually OK, but much longer than that, I find the peat water to have traces of ammonia. Perhaps this isn't a problem and is quickly removed by the filter in a seasoned tank? I don't know. I usually try to use it before then, to be on the safe side.

Does anyone else have any experience or knowledge of ammonia in peat water?

Thanks,
Michael

 

[farm41]

I have never tested mine, but I buy peat with no fertilizers added. Some peat moss does have fertilizer in it.

 

[cootwarm]

Hi Matt,

No fertilizer in my peat moss either. I only detected ammonia after the peat moss had soaked in the barrel of water more than 1 week. I've also detected it sooner when I used the same peat moss for the 4th or 5th time. I don't usually use it more than 4 times. I think the ammonia may be caused by the peat moss begining to decompose, but that is just an assumption.

I just happened to test for ammonia on a whim one time when I had peat moss soaking for about 3 weeks! The ammonia test came out about mid scale of the test kit, which is quite high. I then tested regularly for a while to see when the ammonia would appear. (As I described above)

I don't think I've ever tested it for nitrites or nitrates. Once I found the ammonia, I didn't want to use the water anyhow.

Michael

 

[farm41]

What do you have for a water source? Well or city?

 

[Discus Man]

I only detected ammonia after the peat moss had soaked in the barrel of water more than 1 week.

Not all Canadian Peat is created equally. Try another manufacturer.
Pure Peat should not give off ammonia but I did buy some stuff from a garden centre that had ammonia in it. The stuff I get from Canadian tire never has measurable ammonia, not even after on emonth.

 

[apistoguitarra]

what's the benefit of using Canadian moss? I couldn't find any at Home depot, so I just bought Pure Peat Moss (didn't say anything about Canada). It didn't have any fertilizers in it or anything.

David

 

[cootwarm]

The brand peat moss I've been using is Lambert Canadian Sphagum Peat Moss. I looked the bag over real good and found something missing. The word "Pure"! :wink:
The label didn't say anything about any additives, but it didn't say there weren't any either.

I guess I'll be shopping for a bale of peat moss in the next couple days.

Michael

 

[Blackshark667766]

Peat/rested peat; bogwood et cetera

This is the reason for aerating the peat: un - oxygenated peat can and has preserved items of archaeological interest for centuries :!: , if not millenia (thousands of years). It is, until dug up, effectively "sterile", until exposed to the bugs of the 21st Century! + Until it has been contaminatedly "reduced" to our level, then it is rather like drinking R.O. water: it is so pure as to be almost poisonous :lol: Try drinking even "distilled" or "deionised" water, if you you doubt my word. They both taste uniformly revolting.

Aeration and mixture with modern air and water, gives us a chance to equalise the balance. People in the U.K. can also try Pure untreated Irish peat in their experiments, with caution obviously. Very few things do what they actually say on the "tin"!

Modern Man is indeed a paradox: the further we progress ......... the further we fall behind. But I'm not here to preach, merely to learn.


Nick