Lowering ph without using CO2

[bobo31]

Hey,

I was hoping that someone could give me some ideas of how I could lower my ph in order to raise a pair of apistos in my 10gal. tank.

My ph is at about 8.4 out of the tap and it has a Kh of 7 and GH of 1.

I would like to lower the ph to somewhere in the 6's would this be possible.
I would also like to do it without RO water because I don't have the cash for that.

Would peat work. How much would peat lower the ph?
Are there any other alternatives?

Thanks,
Robert.

 

[farm41]

Yep, peat will do the job. I've had mine down to 4.5 with peat. I buy a bale of peat and a 32g garbage can, then fill a 5g bucket with peat and dump it into the garbage can. Next, fill with water and add an airstone, in a day it's ready to go. I just dip some out and strain it through some plastic window screen.

Another way to use it is to put some into a nylon stocking and place into your tank.

HTH

 

[bobo31]

Is there anyway to measure exactly how much to add to get the ph to the desired levels or is it just shooting in the dark?

Thanks,
Robert.

 

[farm41]

Once I get it made up, I will mix the peat conditioned water with tap at a 1 part peat to 5 parts tap and increase the ratio if needed to get the results I want. It works very good for me doing it this way.

HTH

 

[irishspy]

Once I get it made up, I will mix the peat conditioned water with tap at a 1 part peat to 5 parts tap and increase the ratio if needed to get the results I want. It works very good for me doing it this way.

HTH

What if one doesn't like the coloration of the water caused by the peat? Will carbon remove this? If so, does it also undo the benefits of the peat?

--Anthony

 

[Xanathos]

Another good way to produce soft and acidic water is to use Ro water. They sell it in grocery stores or places where they sell stuff to make your own home-made wine...

Just mix tap water with RO water to get the values you want

Hope this helps
Phil

 

[tjudy]

The carbonate hardness in your water can affect the effectiveness of peat. With a pH as high as yours, I suspect you have a pretty high pH. With a ten gallon tank I would use RO.. you would not have to buy that much.

Seachem makes a good product called Acid Buffer that does a good job of lowering pH and decreasing carbonate hardness.

 

[bobo31]

Thanks for the replies I will keep these options in mind.

 

[aspen]

you have a strange water mix. usually the gh is higher than the kh. when cut, it seems to be suggested to be somewhere around gh4, kh 2 for optimum apisto health according to the more exp'ed people on this board. then add a little peat or oak leaves to naturally lower the ph. by simply cutting your tap water with r/o, your gh will be quite low, or non-existant. you would do well to re-constitute r/o, with one of the store bought additives, like r/o right, etc. and use all r/o.

you may need to do some research on how people do this. you don't want to be fooling around, and not doing it right.

hth, rick

 

[tjudy]

I have been doing some experiments with pure RO and driftwood. My RO/DI unit produces 0 ppm water with a pH of 7.0. New driftwood releases enough tannins to increase the TDS to 30-50ppm in a bucket, overnight. The pH reduces to about 6.8, but this is without aeration.

Aged driftwood that is not releasing as much tannin also increases the TDS, and only about 10% less than the new driftwood. This tells me that the bulk of the tannins are not increasing the electric conductivity of the water significantly.

I have triggered Pelvicachromis to spawn with massive water changes fo pure RO, but my tanks are litterally choked with planted driftwood and are constantly a tea color. I grow plants onto wood and sell the pieces, so I always have new wood in my tanks. About the time they are well aged and releasing less tannin, I replace it with a new piece of wood.

When I do those massive (80%+) changes, the water ends up near 50ppm. I usually try to stay between 50 and 100 ppm. Seachem Acid Buffer will decrease the pH for me down to 6.0, but it adds TDS. So I use it to keep the pH low, and the TDS in the range that I want it at.

 

[Scooter]

If you don't want to use peat, I would agree that you can use RO water alone. My tap is also too high in TDS and pH, so I use straight RO and add the RO Right. This works very well for me in my tanks

 

[bobo31]

Someone motioned buying RO water from the store. I don't ever recall seeing RO water in the store though. What stores would carry it and what exactly is it called. Also can you think of any brand names.

OR is distilled water the same thing as RO water?

Thanks,
Robert.

 

[aspen]

>>'OR is distilled water the same thing as RO water?'

distilled water is more pure, made by a different method, and more expensive than r/o (reverse osmosis). distilled water is made by boiling the water and collecting the steam, which is quite expensive in heat. r/o water is filtered by a very fine membrane, and therefore should be quite a bit cheaper. it is sold in grocery stores in canada, among other places, like my lfs. the cheapest i've found it here, is 3.50 can (2.20 u.s.) per 5 gals. or, you can buy an r/o filtration system for your own home, for much less than buying the water in the long run. that will depend on how many fish you've got to keep in clean water.

rick

 

[jdjohn]

Okay, don't flame me :evil: , but has anyone here tried using a weak acid to lower pH? I have read of folks using muriatic acid to do this, but wondered what the consensus was here.

Jody

 

[Neil]

jdjohn,

WELCOME TO THE FORUM

Jody,
Don't worry, not much flaming goes on around here!
Many people including me have used various other acids to drop the pH. In addition to muratic, there are numerous other acids (products) that can achieve that result. The key is to stabilize the drop and not use a phosphate product if you are worried about algae. I currently use a product called Acid buffer by Seachem. It can be used in conjunction with Alk buffer to stabilize the pH, but I haven't had a need for that, as it also seems to increase the KH enough to keep it where I want it.
Neil

 

[cootwarm]

Hi Matt,

When you mix a 5 gal bucket of peat with water in a 32 gal barrel, how many times do you use that same 5 gal of peat before it loses effectiveness?

You say that it's ready in a day, so I would assume that you could fill the barrel at least a time or two more before it no longer works. Wrong assumption? I'm glad I read this thread, I didn't realize that much peat was required to be effective. I was just going to put a small hand full in a little box filter. The bag of peat I purchased wouldn't even fill one 5 gal bucket! :lol:

Thanks,
Mike

 

[aspen]

>>'The bag of peat I purchased wouldn't even fill one 5 gal bucket!'

peat is sold in garden stores for about 4 bucks a bale. it is pretty cheap to use this way. buying peat in a lfs is way more expensive. remember to buy 'pure canadian sphagnum peat moss', no additives.

you should be able to use matt's idea a number of times, each time used, the time required increases, till it is not longer effective and needs to be changed.

>>'I was just going to put a small hand full in a little box filter.'

regardless, you should use less, and see how much you need as you get the hang of how it affects YOUR water. whenever you are fooling with your water parms, care should be taken testing things till you are more sure of the results.

>>"but has anyone here tried using a weak acid to lower pH?'

i have used phosphoric acid, and muriatic acid with my straight tapwater and found the parms bouncing back and forth. i use a combination of cutting my water with r/o and adding peat and it makes things quite stable. this is most important, stable parms where you want them and will take some trial and error, not going to extremes till you know how things are going to re-act.

for eggs to hatch, conductivity is what is important, not ph. to get your fish to spawn, well that is anopther issue. maybe your fish will spawn easily in higher ph and lower conductivity. for general keeping of adults and growouts, i don't bother to change my tapwater.

rick

 

[farm41]

I agree with everything Rick has said here.

I think I refill the barrel 4 or 5 times.

 

[cootwarm]

Thanks guys,

What is conductivity? Is it related to KH or GH?

My tap water, after airating over night, (if I read my kits right) tests out at :

7.2 pH
89.5 ppm GH (my kit says 5 drops = 5 deg. GH = 89.5 ppm GH)
53.7 ppm KH (3 drops = 3 degrees KH = 53.7 ppm KH)

In general I'd like to achieve 6.5 pH, but I'd like the capability of getting slightly less than 6 pH. I have a few plants in my tanks. Mostly Java Moss, Java Ferns, Corkscrew Val, and Amazon Swords. Any recomendations? What kind of GH & KH target values would I be looking for?

From what I've read, for plants CO2 is best. But I've read about difficulty keeping stable parms with CO2 related to day/night cycles. I figure I should first get a handle on my parms without CO2, then when I have a working routine in place I can experiment with CO2.

In October I plan to install an R/O unit. Would this make my water too soft? Considering the above parms, What effect would an R/O unit have on my water as it relates to both fish and plants?

Thanks,
Michael