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Looking to lower pH. Seachem Discus Buffer?

Kaie

New Member
Messages
41
I recently made a thread about a 29g amazon biotope. Well, i ended up putting a P. Pulcher couple in there and have some Congo Tetras coming soon too..

Anyways.. I have recently aqiured a 55gal that i want to do a 'warm water low pH' themed tank. My plan is to have Rams, Angels, Threadfin rainbows, and a couple other things that like the 80 degree water and lower pH.

Im trying to find ways to effectively lower my pH. My tap pH is 7.0 according to my API test kit. I want to drop it down to 6.5-6.7.

I cant use plants right away because the lights aren't effective enough. I bought some 100% peatmoss today. But im really unsure on how effective it is, or how to properly use itm.

I personally love Seachem products and i thought about using the discus buffer and discus trace to soften and lower the pH of my water. Can anyone recommend this product?

Seachem also makes the Acid Buffer too....
 

Rod

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
196
Location
Brisbane,Australia
My favourite topic.....:tongue:

The fish you are looking to keep are soft water fish.....low conductivity

Anything you ADD to the tank (other than pure water) may alter ph but it with increase TDS and conductivity so it's counter productive IMO

Buffer and additives are great for HARD water fish(Tangs Mbuna).....
BEST additive for soft water fish is water....pure water

Do not worry about ph....if tap water is 7 then there is a Good chance the ph will drop naturally with addition of fish waste/peat

So personally....I suggest the best plan is
No ph down
No buffers

Check that the peat moss is Real sphagnum peat moss and not a concoction for horticultural use(coconut fibres and decomposed pine chips)
 

Kaie

New Member
Messages
41
Hi rod. thanks for the info. good stuff. :)

I did get some sphagnum peat moss.. The package says:

Ingredients: 100% sphagnum Peat moss. It also states it has no additives and stuff like that.. Its a huge compressed brick. It was heavy as hell.

this is the website for the product. http://www.sungro.com/products_displayBrand.php?brand_id=15

The back doesnt have any fine print listing any other ingredients..

How much do you think is necessary to use? Its a 55 gallon tank and i have 2 of the Marineland Emperor Biowheels. I have no issues filling some panty hose or something and filling one tub with it. Would that be enough? Too much? Any way i need to prepare it?
 

Rod

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
196
Location
Brisbane,Australia
Yep....that's the Good gear! :biggrin:

Break a piece off the brick and sit it in some water....once it is water logged
Then.....as proposed.....put it in panty hose in one of the filters.....change it every month at least

It will send water brown.....if that worries you....don't do it
I have seen some suggest the use of purigen to clean the water......but I don't like that concept....again it seems counter productive

You can also boil it and just add the tea coloured water....it acts like Black water tonic
I prefer the first option
 

Kaie

New Member
Messages
41
I was expecting it to turn the water brown/tea colored.

I could see where the Purigen would come into play... but only IF it only takes the color out and not the 'active properties' if you will.

So you don't suppose there is a specific amount i should use?

Do you happen to know how much on average it should drop the pH?

How do you feel about using like Kent Marine's Black Water Expert as well for nutrients? I'm all about giving these fish a home as close to nature intended.
 

Rod

Member
5 Year Member
Messages
196
Location
Brisbane,Australia
It will be a bit of ....suck it and see

Don't need to buy any more "products"
Good old peat is all you need....

If there is anything else it's RO or rainwater....

Best to keep it simple....the more you play with water the more you have to keep playing and that where you can make a big mistake....chasing numbers (Ph)
 

Linus_Cello

Active Member
5 Year Member
Messages
276
Location
Washington DC
Or another option would be to put the moss in to a large plastic bin or trash can, let the water steep there for a few days, and use the water from there for water changes. That might work better since you're running HOT filters (I find that anything in my marineland HOT filters cause backwash over the overflow)
 

tjudy

Moderator
Staff member
5 Year Member
Messages
2,822
Location
Stoughton, WI
With a pH of 7.0 already, I suspect that your tap water is somewhat soft. or it at least does not have much carbonate hardness (KH) in it. Peat should work, but the trick is how to apply it. Marineland Emperor filters are hard to manipulate when it comes to putting other media in the back. I have had some success using the carbon cartridge inserts and filling them with soaked peat. Since they slide in before the filter pad any fibers that break loose will get captured.
 

dw1305

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
I agree with Rod's comments about soft water and soft water fish. For tannin stained water, I use a cotton pillow case, 1/2 filled with sphagnum peat, tied up and then dumped into a water butt. This should provide water until the peats CEC has been used up, and you can adjust the tint by changing the ratio of peat stained water to rain-water (or R.O. etc).
With a pH of 7.0 already, I suspect that your tap water is somewhat soft. or it at least does not have much carbonate hardness (KH) in it.
Personally I'd ignore the pH reading, unfortunately pH on its own is a fairly useless measurement unless you have a measure of the carbonate buffering (dHK).

cheers Darrel
 

Kaie

New Member
Messages
41
I put 3-4 handfuls of peat each in some womens leggings. i capped the open end off with bread ties.

I check the pH this morning and it had dropped to 6.8 from 7.0 when i put it in. Its been less then 24 hours... Thats good yeah?

EDIT: On a side note.. i just tested the pH again. im having a really hard time telling if its 6.4 or 6.6 or 6.8 [on the API master kit]... Though im leaning towards 6.6 since it sort of looks like them all. I should get a digital readout.

With a pH of 7.0 already, I suspect that your tap water is somewhat soft. or it at least does not have much carbonate hardness (KH) in it. Peat should work, but the trick is how to apply it. Marineland Emperor filters are hard to manipulate when it comes to putting other media in the back. I have had some success using the carbon cartridge inserts and filling them with soaked peat. Since they slide in before the filter pad any fibers that break loose will get captured.

I treated these emperors the same way i do my Aquaclears. I use bulk pond filter or pillow stuffing from the craft store in the tubs topped with pantyhose filled with Seachem Matrix so the stuff doesnt float away.

In these emperors though, I dedicated one whole filter to mechanical and bio [using the previously mentioned method]. The second Emperor i filled one tub with nothing but matrix and the other tub with peat.
 

dw1305

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
6.8 from 7.0 when i put it in. Its been less then 24 hours... Thats good yeah?
It is heading in the right direction, but there is no real difference between pH6.8 and pH7. The next bit has a bit of chemistry, but hopefully it should make sense. At pH7 we are right in the middle of the curve (the "equivalence point") where a small addition of acid or bases has a relatively large effect oh pH (it is a log10 scale), the amount of acid you have to add to change the pH is dependent upon the buffering of the water (the dKH). Have a look here for more details <http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/CO2/khgh.html>

This is the titration curve for a strong acid strong base reaction (HCl and NaOH), so we only H+, Cl-, Na+ & OH- ions. Both substances are extremely caustic on their own, but if we can achieve a ratio of 1:1 H+:OH- ions the pH will be pH7 and the liquid benign.

titration-curve-strong-acid-base.gif



pH

Because acidity/alkalinity is difficult to calculate the pH scale was developed which acts as a proxy, by expressing acidity/alkalinity in terms of the equivalent activity of H+ ions (also called "protons", and actually in the form of hydronium ions H3O+).

A low pH indicates a high concentration of hydronium ions, while a high pH indicates a low concentration. Crudely, this negative of the logarithm matches the number of places behind the decimal point, so for example 0.1 molar hydrochloric acid should be near pH 1 and 0.0001 molar HCl should be near pH 4 (the base 10 logarithms of 0.1 and 0.0001 being −1, and −4, respectively). Pure (de-ionised) water is neutral, and can be considered either a very weak acid or a very weak base (centre of the 0 to 14 pH scale), giving it a pH of 7 (at 25 °C (77 °F)), or 0.0000001 M H+.

So at pH7 in pure water we have an equal conc. of H+ and OH- ions (from the dissolution of H2O), both concs. = 0.0000001 M

Acidity - An acid is a substance which can act as a proton (H+) donor.
Alkalinity or basicity - A base is a substance that can accept hydrogen ions.

So out of all that the important bit is acids are H+ donors and alkalis are H+ acceptors.

When you add peat to water with some bases (dGH), the humic acid binds the positively charged calcium (Ca2+) and magnesium (Mg2+) ions, and exchanges them for positively charged hydrogen ions (H+), decreasing the pH.

The dGH is the measure of the divalent cations (Ca2+ and Mg2+), from the peat reaction you can see that if you have water with a high dGH (conc. of Ca and Mg ions), you need a lot of peat to donate enough H+ ions to accept all the Ca/Mg 2+ ions. This process doesn't greatly effect the TDS, all you have done is replaced one sort of compound with another.

cheers Darrel
 

gerald

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
1,491
Location
Wake Forest NC, USA
Ahhh - So the peat is doing exactly what a synthetic ion-exchange resin would do if you charge it with HCl instead of NaCl, correct?

When you add peat to water with some bases (dGH), the humic acid binds the positively charged calcium (Ca2+) and magnesium (Mg2+) ions, and exchanges them for positively charged hydrogen ions (H+), decreasing the pH.
cheers Darrel

Keep in mind that, even if pH drop due to peat ion-exchange is limited by Ca+ and Mg+ availability, pH drop due to bacterial nitrification of ammonium and nitrite is not. I've had small tanks drop as low as 3.8 if I get slack on water changes. (Cardinal tetras were dying, but A. baenschi looked fine)!

On a related note, pH meters with a glass electrode are slow to equilibrate to very soft, low conductivity water. If you have many tanks to keep track of and want a pH meter that responds quickly in low conductivity, the IQ-120 Mini-Lab ISFET meter from IQ Scientific is pretty good, and costs about $200 US. The ISFET is an electronic sensor, far less maintenance than a glass membrane.

http://www.phmeters.com/isfet-faq.htm
see FAQ #7 about low-cond pH measurement
 

dw1305

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
Ahhh - So the peat is doing exactly what a synthetic ion-exchange resin would do if you charge it with HCl instead of NaCl, correct?
Yes, it is, the nature of the monovalent cation is irrelevant (so you can use KCl rather than NCl etc) in an ion exchange resin. The high CEC of the peat is an intrinsic property of the sphagnum peat cells, these exchange H+ for the other very scarce cations as the peat is from rain fed mires (where H+ is the only cation available in more than trace amounts).
Keep in mind that, even if pH drop due to peat ion-exchange is limited by Ca+ and Mg+ availability, pH drop due to bacterial nitrification of ammonium and nitrite is not. I've had small tanks drop as low as 3.8 if I get slack on water changes. (Cardinal tetras were dying, but A. baenschi looked fine)!
Yes, this is "bio-acidification", which is why most people find it easy to keep water with some carbonate buffering (dKH). The extra H+ ions in this case come from the NH3 - NO2 - NO3 conversion.
NH3 + 2 O2 => NO3- + H+ + H2O.

On a related note, pH meters with a glass electrode are slow to equilibrate to very soft, low conductivity water.
True again, you really need an electronic bench type meter, that remains constantly on, or to use titrimetric methods. Personally I'd just ignore pH in very soft water.

cheers Darrel
 

gerald

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
1,491
Location
Wake Forest NC, USA
Hi all,
Personally I'd just ignore pH in very soft water.
cheers Darrel

Hmmm ... Can you explain that statement a bit more Darrel? Do you just measure alkalinity and hardness, and not pH? I've had ultra-soft water plunge to pH 4.0 or less in some tanks (esp when I slack off on water changes), and rise to upper-8s in other tanks (esp afternoon with a bloom of cyano slime and few fish). Maybe I'm just too steeped in tradition to take the leap yet that pH is unimportant. It worries me to rely on KH as a surrogate measure of pH, since pH can go anywhere when KH is low, but I'm intrigued to learn more.
 

dw1305

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK
Hi all,
Do you just measure alkalinity and hardness, and not pH? I've had ultra-soft water plunge to pH 4.0 or less in some tanks (esp when I slack off on water changes), and rise to upper-8s in other tanks (esp afternoon with a bloom of cyano slime and few fish). Maybe I'm just too steeped in tradition to take the leap yet that pH is unimportant.
No, that it pretty much why pH is largely irrelevant in water with little buffering, pH is a moveable feast and as the O2 and CO2 levels change during the photosynthetic cycle the pH will fluctuate widely (as you suggest) from ~pH4 to ~pH9. This doesn't effect the fish in the way that it would if the pH change was occurring in buffered water, or water with higher conductivity, or if they were fish from stable environments (Marine, Rift Valley Lakes etc.).

That is not to say that low pH and lack of buffering are irrelevant, they aren't and in very soft, salts poor water, biological filtration capacity will be compromised and if biological filtration is severely compromised acidosis can occur.

This is why it is much easier to work with water with some buffering, it gives you a little bit more stability. I like plants, substrate, water with some buffering, some DOC, some biofilm etc. in all my tanks as they all make management easier, and add to stability. That is what I want in the tanks, a stable, resilient environment. I'm pretty sure that this is much more important than maintaining than any particular pH value etc.

<http://www.dennislehmkuhl.com/media/366771e1d09a8e0bffff8a62ffffe906.pdf>.

cheers Darrel
 

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