lowering pH

[Aquarijen]

Hi All,

The pH from my tap is 8.0 and I would like to lower it a bit, but I would
like it to be stable. I have seen articles written on lowering pH with
boiled peat moss or using a mix of RO water and tap and then I also saw a
few threads about using a brita filter instead of RO because it contains ion
exchange resins to lower the pH of the water that goes into it.
What, in your opinion would be the best way to go about doing this - I have
to be able to treat the water for water changes and would like to do this in
a consistant manner that is not too much trouble. I do not have cichlids
and most of the fish I want require a lower pH than 8.
How do you all do it?
Should I even bother?
I'd like to have some angelfish. The tank is 135 gallon.

Thanks!
Jennifer

[Mean_Chlorine]

Thusly "Aquarijen" > Spake Unto All:

>and most of the fish I want require a lower pH than 8.
>How do you all do it?
>Should I even bother?

Do you intend to BREED blackwater fish?
If so, then it might be worth it to lower pH. I'd suggest getting an
RO unit, and then adjusting pH with peat, oak extract, and tapwater.
If you're just interested in keeping the fish, and having them live
long, happy, prosperous lives and growing as well as they ever could,
then you shouldn't bother with the pH.

The importance of pH for fish is *greatly* overrated, but low pH
(and/or low conductivity) seems a factor necessary to induce spawning
in some, but not all, species of rainforest fish.

[Iain Miller]

> Hi All,
>
> The pH from my tap is 8.0 and I would like to lower it a bit, but I would
> like it to be stable. I have seen articles written on lowering pH with
> boiled peat moss or using a mix of RO water and tap and then I also saw a
> few threads about using a brita filter instead of RO because it contains
ion
> exchange resins to lower the pH of the water that goes into it.
> What, in your opinion would be the best way to go about doing this - I
have
> to be able to treat the water for water changes and would like to do this
in
> a consistant manner that is not too much trouble. I do not have cichlids
> and most of the fish I want require a lower pH than 8.
> How do you all do it?
> Should I even bother?
> I'd like to have some angelfish. The tank is 135 gallon.

That's a fairly big tank so you need a fair amount of water available. For a
start you need to think in terms of treating the water outside the tank
which means you need somewhere to store it and a way to move it from the
storage to the tank. Depending on where you are in the world you may need to
heat it as well before you move it.

I have a plastic barrel in my garage with a pump & a hosepipe for this.

Personally I use a peat filter which is basically just a big plastic box
with layers of filter wool and pond filter mat in it. The peat goes on top
of that. There's a pipe in the bottom that feeds back to the barrel. The
peat just sits on top of the filter matting. I fill the barrel with tap
water through a Nitragon to get rid of the high nitrates we have in tap
water here. Then I pump water from the barrel up into the filter box & it
falls back through the peat into the barrel. Takes between 15 & 30 minutes
to treat about 120 litres of water. WHat I measure is not the Ph but the Kh
which is what is really changing - the Ph is all over the place to start
with because as the water goes through the peat it absorbs massive amounts
of CO2. This "gasses off" in a few hours. I tend to reduce the water to a Kh
of about 5 (from somewhere around 12). That equates to a Ph of about
7-6-7.8.

Once that's done then I pump water through a filter to clean it up a bit.
This just has filter wool in it , some carbon from time to time or part used
bits of polyfilter. I'll usually just leave this running for 2-3 days.

When I want to use the water I have a couple of old aquarium heaters in the
barrel to bring it up to temperature more or less and then I just pump it
from the barrel straight into the tank - no buckets here! The water has a
slight yellowish tinge to it but its nowhere near tea coloured.

Your other option would be an RO unit. You have to run these pretty much
constantly & generally for every gallon of RO water you get you create 4-5
gallons of waste water. You then need to treat the water with minerals
(something like RO-right) to restore it to usable condition. AFAIK RO water
is pretty much buffer-less & so has a low Ph. WHat its like after you add
back the minerals I don't know because I have no experience with it. Overall
they are not cheap to buy or run and unless you keep marine fish or
something like Discus, probably not necessary either.

There really isn't a "magic powder" that you can throw in some water to
create your ideal water conditions. Stuff like Ph Down is available but
expensive. From what I've read it seems a bit unpredictable too. Personally
I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole.

rgds

I.

[Ali Day]

> The pH from my tap is 8.0 and I would like to lower it a bit, but I would
> like it to be stable. I have seen articles written on lowering pH with
> boiled peat moss or using a mix of RO water and tap and then I also saw a
> few threads about using a brita filter instead of RO because it contains
ion
> exchange resins to lower the pH of the water that goes into it.
> What, in your opinion would be the best way to go about doing this - I
have
> to be able to treat the water for water changes and would like to do this
in
> a consistant manner that is not too much trouble. I do not have cichlids
> and most of the fish I want require a lower pH than 8.
> How do you all do it?
> Should I even bother?
> I'd like to have some angelfish. The tank is 135 gallon.

First of all how hard is your water, you don't want to be passing it through
peat if it's low, you'll crash the pH.
Do you have to pretreat your water before you put it in the tank for
chlorine/chloramine, if so pre treating your water for pH wouldn't be such a
burden for you.

I have a 170 gallon PH 6.6, and my tap water is 7.8pH 15kh
I'm lucky I can just dump my water into the tank straight from the tap, I do
a 20% water change every 10 days or so, and it doesn't create a jump in the
PH etc.

I have a semi-homemade CO2 kit using a 6kg CO2 bottle used in bars, through
a PH controller. The initial outlay was about 120 euros/dollars for the
controller, 55 euros deposit on the bottle and 25 euros for each refill. I'm
not entirely sure how long the 6kg bottle will last, but when I used the
1/2kg CO2 bottles from the LFS one would last me a month, so I'm now
thinking my CO2 system will last me a year for about 25 euros, and I can be
sure of what levels I have because of the controller.

Cheers

A

[Mbuna]

Jennifer,

My recommendation is DON'T MESS WITH THE pH!!!!! Ok, hope that got
your attention! :-)

Changing pH in a tank is very difficult. It's not so hard to change
it, but keeping it stable is very difficult. And pH changes are
deadly to fish.

Almost all fish with thrive in pH of 8.0 with few exceptions. Almost
all of the fish you find in the US are bred in water that has a
neutral pH of around 7.0. So there are almost no fish that you'll
get that need to have pH lower than that, and they will all do well
in pH of 8.0.


Stop by FishGeeks at http://FishGeeks.com to learn more.

Sean
__________________________________________________
Posted via FishGeeks - http://Aquaria.info

[Aquarijen]

"Mbuna" > wrote in message
...
> Jennifer,
>
> My recommendation is DON'T MESS WITH THE pH!!!!! Ok, hope that got
> your attention! :-)
>
> Changing pH in a tank is very difficult. It's not so hard to change
> it, but keeping it stable is very difficult. And pH changes are
> deadly to fish.
>
> Almost all fish with thrive in pH of 8.0 with few exceptions. Almost
> all of the fish you find in the US are bred in water that has a
> neutral pH of around 7.0. So there are almost no fish that you'll
> get that need to have pH lower than that, and they will all do well
> in pH of 8.0.
>
>
> Stop by FishGeeks at http://FishGeeks.com to learn more.
>
> Sean
> __________________________________________________
> Posted via FishGeeks - http://Aquaria.info


OK! :)
I didn't really want to mess with the pH (especially on the big tank) but
when I read about the fish I want, 8 is usually out of the range that the
fish books say they require.
I know that a pH swing can be deadly - if I get a fish from the store that
was in pH of 6, how long do I acclimate it before dropping it into my
quarentine tank (pH of 8 - pretty hard water) - I have a fish-only 10 gallon
bucket and a fish-only 5 gallon bucket. I can put him in the 5 first and
add tank water in intervals - how slow should one do this? I'll start with
the angels because they are not so expensive, but I don't want to lose some
of the fish I plan on getting - they are expensive (I would like Boseman's
rainbows and some other new guinea rainbows and a black ghost knifefish).
Thanks all!
Jennifer

[Ali Day]

"Mbuna" > wrote in message
...

> My recommendation is DON'T MESS WITH THE pH!!!!! Ok, hope that got
> your attention! :-)

Sorry I have to disagree, don't mess with the pH if you don't know what your
doing. I got stuck into pH control without too many problems as soon as I
realised I wanted Discus in my tank. First of all I had a simple bubbler kit
from my LFS, then as I went up through the tank sizes, I then set up what is
a fairly industrial strength pH control system.

> Changing pH in a tank is very difficult.

No it's not.

> It's not so hard to change it,

Yep

>but keeping it stable is very difficult.

No

> And pH changes are deadly to fish.

Of course, but once you set a pH control system, it's there to keep your pH
at a certain level, and it's not meant to fluctuate.

> Almost all fish with thrive in pH of 8.0 with few exceptions. Almost
> all of the fish you find in the US are bred in water that has a
> neutral pH of around 7.0.

> So there are almost no fish that you'll get that need to have pH lower
than that, and they will all do well
> in pH of 8.0.

OK I can't speak for what happens in the states as to whether fish have been
bred to tolerate higher pH's but in my tank I have
Discus, Neon, Rose(Fire) & Rummy nosed Tetras, Clown Loaches, Glass Catfish,
Hatchet Fish & SAE's

And IMHO only the SAE and Rose tetras will handle a pH of 8. My tank sits
about 6.6 - 6.7 and that is what I believe is a good range for my fish,
admittedly this is still a bit high for the Rummy nosed.

Changing pH is something done by aquarists all over the world, sorry to
sound preachy, but there is enough written out there about all aspects of
this hobby, and if your willing to take the time and effort to read it,
nothing is difficult.

Regards

A

[Dr Engelbert Buxbaum]

Ali Day wrote:


> First of all how hard is your water, you don't want to be passing it through
> peat if it's low, you'll crash the pH.

Nope, you don't. Been there, done that, during my time in Kuwait. The
tap water there is distilled sea water, with some ground water added.
Total hardness less than 1 degree. After peat filtering a nice stable pH
of 6.5

[Dr Engelbert Buxbaum]

Iain Miller wrote:


> Your other option would be an RO unit. You have to run these pretty much
> constantly & generally for every gallon of RO water you get you create 4-5
> gallons of waste water. You then need to treat the water with minerals
> (something like RO-right) to restore it to usable condition. AFAIK RO water
> is pretty much buffer-less & so has a low Ph. WHat its like after you add
> back the minerals I don't know because I have no experience with it. Overall
> they are not cheap to buy or run and unless you keep marine fish or
> something like Discus, probably not necessary either.

RO removes (essentially) all dissolved material from the water, the
result is like distilled water: No ions, no buffer. If used directly
with fishes their gills would say "thank you". But you don't need
expensive products to add ions back, you can usually just mix RO water
with tap water until the desired hardness has been achieved.

>
> There really isn't a "magic powder" that you can throw in some water to
> create your ideal water conditions. Stuff like Ph Down is available but
> expensive. From what I've read it seems a bit unpredictable too. Personally
> I wouldn't touch it with a bargepole.

I stoped using such products, as they use phosphate as buffering ion. It
is a wonderful buffer with a pKa of 6.8, just right for a South America
tank. However, it supports the growth of algae. So yes: hands off.

[Ali Day]

"Dr Engelbert Buxbaum" > wrote in message
...
> Ali Day wrote:
>
>
> > First of all how hard is your water, you don't want to be passing it
through
> > peat if it's low, you'll crash the pH.
>
> Nope, you don't. Been there, done that, during my time in Kuwait. The
> tap water there is distilled sea water, with some ground water added.
> Total hardness less than 1 degree. After peat filtering a nice stable pH
> of 6.5

Yep
It's not going to do bugga all if your playing with kh at that level. Even
the slightest bit of CO2 near that would make it drop like hell. You really
have to be aware (as you obviously were) of hardnesses at those levels,
that's my main point, and in my experience, and what I've read from people
who have hardness levels of less than 4-5 have had at least one crash in
their tanks.

Cheers

A

[Mr Happy]

I agree - I manage water chemistry as I have some F0 discus and
F0 Frontosa - It is doable with money, kit and attention but I
agree that the hardest thing is maintaing the stability of the
values

Most tank bred fish will survive happily in 6.0-8.0 - they may
not be as likely to breed

I suggest, if you are going to buy mail order, you check on the
current PH of the water the fish live in and only buy from
something close to yours.

pollutant toxicity is higher, the lower the PH so, the more you
lower PH, the cleaner your water must be - a small point but
well worth remembering - raising PH is a bit easier and a move
of 1.0 can be achieved with no plants and coral sand
substrate/filter pack

It all depends on what you are starting with and where you want
to go

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