View Full Version : Aged Water
I will finally be setting up my 150g tomorrow. :D I tested my tap water a couple of weeks ago and I got some weird results of having a high pH and low KH. Tempest clued me in to letting my water sit out a while and retest it after it had "aged". Well, I did and my pH was a more normal 7.2 with a KH of 1.5. Right then I retested it out of the tap and the Ph was 8.8!!! What the heck is in "unaged water". I let the aged water sit out for about a week or so (I forgot about it) before I tested it. How long does it normally take to age water? Will this initially screw up my CO2 set up?
Thanks for any help,
- Jamie
ChilDawg
08-24-2003, 6:45 PM
Does your city chloraminate the water? If so, aging is simply not enough.
wetmanNY
08-24-2003, 6:46 PM
Jamie there's some material on soft water with high alkalinity at www.skepticalaquarist.com in the Filtration folder, on the Softening page. Scroll down for it. (Sorry I couldn't make a better link.)
Doubtless your water company is shocking the system with slaked lime in some fashion...
Agree w/wetmanNY, and such treatment is becoming more and more common.
My water at home does not have this treatment (yet), but at the office it did. There 24-48 hours with tempering (heater set to tank temp), recirculation and surface break (from the recirculation) brought the water down to stable parameters. I don't know the timing without the tempering, recirculation, and aeration.
Chlorine and chloramine are separate issues. At home I have chlorine only as a rule, at the office it was chloramine. The aging process I use clears chlorine (I test), but does little for chloramine. For chloramine I use Prime or Amquel.
Jamie
08-24-2003, 10:48 PM
I checked out the skeptical aquarist article and it was very informative. I like having an idea of what's going on with my water- CO2 depletion sounds like a good explanation for my "phenomena". Thanks for the heads up on the chloramines- I knew about them and usually use a tap water conditioner...I just wasn't sure about why my pH was so elevated. In that same article they talked about peat moss and what it actually does...soaking up Ca and Mg ions....plantbrain has recommended putting peat moss underneath flourite as part of the substrate. Will this affect the nutrients needed for my plants? I'll post this ? in the plants forum also. Thanks again.