• 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!

thinking of adding GHO ORGANIC HUMIC ACID SOLUBLE GRANULES 93% humic and fulvic.

martink

Member
Messages
64
to lower ph from 6.8 . kh2 gh 3, tds 70. seems like it might be a nice additive along with ground beech bark. anythoughts from someone with better chem experience, im just experimenting. I was thinking of using acetic acid as i soak wood in ascetic acid/cinnamon solution and I think my fish colour up better when the wood is newly added, so thinking it might be better to add some kind of acid. thought this might be better than ascetic acid sol.
 

MacZ

Well-Known Member
Messages
2,958
Location
Germany
The stuff is a fertilizer, designed to chelate micro nutrients in plant soil. It's also hard to dose, as barely anyone has any experience of using that highly concentrated humic acids in Aquaria. What makes me really wary whether this is a good idea is that the package says pH 9.5.

In any case stay away from stronger acids they just raise conductivity, which is the opposite of what you will want. Rather have a higher pH (6-6.5) and low TDS (<50mg/l) than low pH (5) and high TDS (>100).

If you want reliable and save humic substances go for tropical botanicals, local leaf litter, alder cones or peat (the latter can not be sourced sustainably though.). Or take the humic substance powders especially designed for aquaria those can hardly be overdosed.

Edit: In any case, if you really want to try: Start with a small package and experiment first with samples from your tank, a pH-meter and a conductivity meter. And then maybe don't try it immediately on your main tanks. I'm against possibly sacrificing fish for such experiments.
 

martink

Member
Messages
64
The stuff is a fertilizer, designed to chelate micro nutrients in plant soil. It's also hard to dose, as barely anyone has any experience of using that highly concentrated humic acids in Aquaria. What makes me really wary whether this is a good idea is that the package says pH 9.5.

In any case stay away from stronger acids they just raise conductivity, which is the opposite of what you will want. Rather have a higher pH (6-6.5) and low TDS (<50mg/l) than low pH (5) and high TDS (>100).

If you want reliable and save humic substances go for tropical botanicals, local leaf litter, alder cones or peat (the latter can not be sourced sustainably though.). Or take the humic substance powders especially designed for aquaria those can hardly be overdosed.

Edit: In any case, if you really want to try: Start with a small package and experiment first with samples from your tank, a pH-meter and a conductivity meter. And then maybe don't try it immediately on your main tanks. I'm against possibly sacrificing fish for such experiments.
thanks macz
 

Apistoguy52

Active Member
Messages
275
to lower ph from 6.8 . kh2 gh 3, tds 70. seems like it might be a nice additive along with ground beech bark. anythoughts from someone with better chem experience, im just experimenting. I was thinking of using acetic acid as i soak wood in ascetic acid/cinnamon solution and I think my fish colour up better when the wood is newly added, so thinking it might be better to add some kind of acid. thought this might be better than ascetic acid sol.
I use muriatic as it’s pretty easy to get hands on. PH goes from 7.4 to 5.5, and tds go from 30ppm, to 37 with my “usual” dosage.
 

dw1305

Well-Known Member
5 Year Member
Messages
2,755
Location
Wiltshire UK

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