tap ph swings. use a buffer?

[SnakeIce]

my tap water during the months october-may is a reasonable 7.2-7.3 but in june each year the system changes sources and the ph begins its anual summer climb to around 9.0.

Is there some way to regulate things. I have plants but am not running enough light to use co2 to bring that high ph down and the ph is fine for about 7 months out of the year.

so any product suggestions? every summer is a nightmare trying to keep the tanks healthy cause of the elevated ph

[OrionGirl]

The water stays at the higher level after aeration? Short of using RO, you could use peat filtration to reduce the pH considerably, but I don't know that it will drop it down to 7.2-3. Have you checked http://www.skepticalaquarist.com/ for advice? wetmanNY has a great page on softening.

[yashinfan]

Well I know that someone's going to disagree with this... but... I bought this pH 7.0 stuff and it works really well. I suppose if you did the math to know how much of it to add to your water before adding it than you could use it. But I'd suggest letting it sit in your water for at least an hour before adding it to your tank. Some people warned me against using it but my fish are doing quite well in it, and it slowly rises to about 7.2 after a couple of days. Good luck :)

[SnakeIce]

I will have to go test aereated/aged water and the other things. I just bought jungle's quick dip test strips. previously i just had ph testors. I am in the process of learning all about my water district and the input therin. I just found out that they have monthly meetings but I just missed this months meeting. so I wll have to wait to find out the details of the source water and what additives they use.

will be back with the results of the tests

[SnakeIce]

OK this is the first time i have used these tests so results are approximate

fresh tap water out of an areating faucet: nitrate 10, nitrite 0, gh 120, kh 180, ph 8.0
aged tap water, same order list: 10, 0, gh75, kh 170, ph 7.9
my 20 gal: 30, 0, 150, 160, ph 7.7
my wife's 10 gal: 20, 0, 120, 170, 7.8

Have been adding non-phosphorus ph down for the last week to the tanks my goal is to obtain the 7.2-3 that I have for most of the year

[JSchmidt]

I would expect that with KH of 180 ppm, you'll have a devil of a time getting the pH to stabilize by adding pH Down. As the buffer (KH) takes up the acid in pH Down, your pH will begin to creep up again, at which point you'll have to add more, and this cycle will complete until the buffer is exhausted. At this point, KH will be very low and your tank will be prone to wild pH swings. Even worse, when you add more tap water during partial changes, the buffer will be replenished and your pH will shoot up again.

Proper pH (or Ph 7.0 or any of the phosphates-based buffers) will have similar problems. You'll have the added headache of greatly increasing TDS in the tank, and with a KH of 180 you'll have to use so much phosphates-based buffer that your tank will be prone to severe algae outbreaks.

You would be much better off getting your fish accustomed to the higher pH year-round and boosting pH in months where the tap water's pH dips. For most fish, a constant 7.9 will be much easier to tolerate than a swinging 7.3 to 7.9 with lots of extra chemicals in the water. Unless you're trying to breed tetras or something like that, the 7.9 should be OK.

You could always use reverse osmosis year-round and reconstitute water to your preferences, but that can be expensive...

HTH,
Jim

[wetmanNY]

SnakeIce, JSchmidt gives the general picture: you've got too strong a carbonate buffer with your lime-rich summer water to shift it safely.

What about your roof? Is it sloped and clean? If I weren't in an apartment building with a flat tarred roof right in Manhattan, I'd be tempted to use rainwater-- except that our NYC water is so soft as it is!

Have you looked at the modern rainbarrels at the Home Depot? If you could use about 7/8 rainwater... of course your neighbors will spread the rumor that you're a Green Socialist...

Meanwhile, I googled "Walla Walla water": One of the sites that came up was Walla Walla Watershed. (http://www.co.walla-walla.wa.us/Departments/planning/Watershed/) Your utility should have their "consumer confidence report" uploaded somewhere.

Every fishkeeper should know about their water!

yashimfan, nobody's going to disagree! we don't even know which "stuff" you're using. So. tell us: what are its ingredients? I'm an old stickler about never putting anything into the water unless I know what it is. Even if it has "eco-" or "bio-" in the tradename!

[yashinfan]

is what I'm using. Ingredients: Aloe vera, eggs (ech smells sooooooo bad), does not list other ingredients.
This is what is does: "Automatically sets pH at 7.0, Neutralizes chlorine, detoxifies heavy metals, adds electrolytes." It says not to use with live plants, though.

Hope that helps

[wetmanNY]

yashinfan your "Proper pH7.0" is made by Aquarium Pharmaceuticals, and they have a website www.aquariumpharm.com When you go to the site, the product is listed among the aquarium water additives, and makes this claim: Automatically sets and stabilizes pH at 7.0. Removes chlorine & detoxifies heavy metals. For community aquariums. Contains Aloe Vera and electrolytes.

If you click the button "Product Tech Sheet" you get further compatibility notes: . Proper pH 7.0 is a phosphate buffer and should not be used with live aquatic plants. If the aquarium water has a general hardness (GH) level above 200 ppm a haze can form in the water. This haze is the precipitation of some of the mineral salts. It is non-toxic and will be filtered out by most aquarium filters.

So this phosphate buffer isn't recommended even by the manufacturer for planted aquaria, like SnakeIce's.

Way down at the bottom of the "Tech Sheet" you can download an "MSDS for this product"

That refers to a required OSHA "Material Safety Data Sheet." It lists Sodium Thiosulfate (that's the common dechlorinator), Tetrasodium EDTA (that's the common chelator, that detoxifies heavy metals), and "Trade Secret #1, Trade Secret #2, Trade Secret #3"

What do you think of a corporation withholding this information on the official MSDS? It seems pretty cheeky to me! At least we know it's partly phosphate.

So the "electrolytes" you're adding with "Proper pH7.0" are in fact partly sodium-- as always.

I don't want to put "Trade Secret #1, Trade Secret #2, Trade Secret #3" in my aquarium.

[yashinfan]

One of those secrets is eggs, that's all I remember. A fish breeder I know called up and asked if they were harmful things and the person responded that one of them was in fact eggs and gives it its distinct "rotten egg" odour. I don't have any plants in my aquarium so I guess that's why it works for me :)

[wetmanNY]

Good gracious! You really did mean "eggs". Like powdered eggs? Not a typo, after all...Where does this idea come from? Perhaps you detect a sulfur smell? I'm hornswoggled.

All my careful explanation... eggs! The mind reels! (diminishing Professor Frink noises, with the gasping and the mumbling and the fading away...)

[yashinfan]

lol yes, honest to goodness eggs. I don't think they would be dumb enough to put sulfur into a fish tank and still say it is non-toxic. *shudders at the thought*

[wetmanNY]

You're right. Very little elemental sulfur in a fish tank. Lots of the oxidized form, sulfates (no smell: SO4). Also more sulfides (such as hydrogen sulfide: H2S) than we usually think. Sulfur is built into many organic molecules, like proteins, etc. After "c.h.o.n." carbon hydrogen oxygen nitrogen, sulfur is the next most common element in biochemistry.

But sulfur has kept that "hellfire brimstone" connotation that still makes folks shudder at the thought.

But how could there be "eggs" in "Proper pH 7.0?" I guess that would be Trade Secret #1!

[yashinfan]

I'm not very good at science but maybe eggs mixed with certain things help to create a special pH of 7.0 ? lol! I really do not know but I now have 7 happy fish swimming in it so I guess it's working quite fine. It's slowly becoming 7.2 now but the change is so gradual that it has not affected my fish at all!

[Mgamer20o0]

is it possible just to store water for the summer months. so you can use the same water.

[SnakeIce]

one of the reasons that I wanted to keep the ph at a even 7.2 and not higher is that since the ph has risen I may as well throw out my plants cause they aren't growing at the elevated ph and now i have a tank of very nice looking algea. not exactly what I am going for.

the suggestions of using rainwater are nice in theory, but it only rains 12 to 15 inches a year here. I am considering getting water for my tanks at a friends house who has the more neutral watershed water source year round in stead of the aquifer water that is so hard and high ph. I have not checked the parameters of that water source through the summer months but I am sure that each water source is consistent. so if you can make a choice of where your water comes from in this area you can have the soft planted tank and the rift valley tank without doing much to the water. however I do not have much say in where the water district gets it's supply and have to deal with alternating rift valley and soft water.

so much for tailering the fish you keep to the water parameters you have. unless of course you know of a fish that morphs between apisto like and shell dwellers acording to the water conditions then I would be set:D

[SnakeIce]

one other question!!!! is registering nitrate in the tap water normal? that would explain why the plants didn't seem to notice whether there were fish in the tank if i continued to change water. but isn't that a problem as far as drinking it goes. I am already done growing so I don't think that I need to be fertilized.:p