FishProfiles.com Message Forums

	Lowering ph and softening water
Mike R Fish Addict Posts: 593 Kudos: 830 Votes: 322 Registered: 27-Jul-2004	Hi everyone, I have some Apistogrammas coming, 1 pair of cacatouides and 1 pair of agassizis. I need to lower my ph and soften the water. I heard Peat will do both. Is that true? Are there other, better ways to do it? Thanks, Mike
Posted 26-Jan-2006 12:02
Shannen Banned Posts: 1160 Kudos: 1686 Votes: 98 Registered: 17-Feb-2004	Yes peat will soften your water, but you will need to keep a constant eye on your PH until you get a feel for how much to use. Just make sure there isn't any carbon (it will remove the tannic acid from te peat) in your filter. Stick the peat in the filter where the carbon was. As long as you do small water changes the fluctuation in PH should minimum. Another, but more costly thing is to invest in a RO filter for your tap water, but then you will need to add trace minerals back into your water.
Posted 26-Jan-2006 12:02
Big E Fish Addict Posts: 606 Kudos: 382 Votes: 0 Registered: 20-Feb-2001	Mike - how high is your pH and how hard is your water? If the KH is low, you can lower your pH with driftwood, too. It might take a bit, but my 7.8 pH water with a KH of 4 dropped to 7 flat with three good sized pieces of driftwood. As for peat, I've personally not tried it. I have use a home made CO2 unit to lower my pH down to the mid-6s. Bread yeast, water, and sugar in an old 2 litre bottle with a tube into the tank... Eric
Posted 26-Jan-2006 12:02
Mike R Fish Addict Posts: 593 Kudos: 830 Votes: 322 Registered: 27-Jul-2004	I'm not sure how hard it is but the ph is 7.5. I need to test for hardness but if the peat will do both I think Ill go with that. Thanks for the replies, Mike
Posted 26-Jan-2006 12:02
sham Ultimate Fish Guru Posts: 3369 Kudos: 2782 Votes: 98 Registered: 21-Apr-2004	One thing with peat and tannins... your water will be yellow-brown. I have water at 8.4 ph and the peat only lowered it to about 8.0 before it was too dark to see anything. I couldn't even run enough carbon to clear it out. (2 filters full of carbon) Eventually I gave it up and my current fish seem to do ok. The only way that easily worked to lower my extremely hard water was to mix it 50/50 with distilled or RO. But then I have a kh around 28 straight out of tap and around 15-20 after I run it through a little counter filter I got.
Posted 26-Jan-2006 12:02
Mike R Fish Addict Posts: 593 Kudos: 830 Votes: 322 Registered: 27-Jul-2004	Thanks Sham, I don't want brown water. Would something like vinegar work for ph and the distilled water for hardness? And where do I get trace minerals? Thanks, Mike
Posted 26-Jan-2006 12:02


	Jump to:

The views expressed on this page are the implied opinions of their respective authors.
Under no circumstances do the comments on this page represent the opinions of the staff of FishProfiles.com.

FishProfiles.com Forums, version 11.0
Mazeguy Smilies