Have you investigated the idea of collecting rainwater to do your water
changes with? I had some really high pH #'s (8.4), Kh was 180, and GH was
300. So I can't just use tap water here.
But what I did (ymmv) was to use distilled water during the water changes as
well as add ph down as well.This really was not a big help. But I read about
a fellow "Frankrkay" describes how he does it and I am trying to do
something similar....
_________
This is from post from December, 1983 by Frankrkay
Rain water, for the most part, is soft, has low pH, and has low kH and gH. I
used it for water changes in quite a few tanks, after running it through a
home
made filter.
Waters buffering capacity (kH) is due to carbonates and bicarbonates, which
gives the water ability to keep pH stable. Rainwater is likely to have low
kH -
kH below 4.5dH will cause unstable pH. Sence most people with a tank or two
doesn't have a kH test kit, you can tell if the kH is getting low by testing
the pH. A pH drop of more than two tenths in 4 weeks, means the water's
buffering capacity is almost used up, and it's time to increase kH. You can
raise kH without raising gH (for soft water fish), by adding baking soda. To
raise both gH and kH together ( for hard water fish), add marble chips or
sea
shells to the filter. With rain water, you should filter out heavy metals
and
volatile organic compounds (unburned fuel) - things that can't be
broke-down
by bacteria. After an initial downpour, catch the rain water in a 30 to 40
gal.
plastic trash can, filtered through filter floss, peat moss (binds heavy
metal
impurities), and
activated carbon, or poly filter...... Frank
_________
Check this site out too
http://mike-edwardes.members.beeb.net/rain.html
HTH :-)
--
James
"Deepseafisher" -DONTEMAIL wrote in message
...
| The water here is off the chart on my test strips for ph and Total
| alkalinity (kH, I believe). Is there anything I can do to lower the
| Alkalinity, and then the pH, preferably without changing the hardness?
| The hardness is just right, it runs right around 120 ppm. I've tried
| just about everything, from using plain pH down by Aquarium
| Pharmaceuticals Inc. to a buffer put out by Sea-Chem named pH 7.0
| Neutral Regulator. I've also tried boilling the water before adding
| these chemicals. I've tried using something like 50 times the
| recommended dosage of both on a gallon of water I had sitting in a
| bucket only to not have it change at all. I've got some Africans, some
| Convicts and some Angelfish, all of which absolutely thrive in this
| water (they are all breeding, at least). Will the Rams do okay in this
| seemingly unchangable water? If not, is there some way I haven't thought
| of to change the pH? I want desperately to try some fish that require
| neutral or acidic water such as Rams, but the quest seems hopeless.
| Thanks for any help you might be able to provide.
|
|
|
| --
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|
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