pH 7.8!!

[Cichlid Woman]

Help.

I am going to ask a probably impossible question. I have a 38-gallon, planted community tank with tetras, cories, a clown loach, two clown plecos, two pairs of kribensis, a dwarf cinnamon guarami, a Congo tetra, and a Blue Ram. The tank has been set up for four months (I kept the gravel, filter media, and fish when I moved from a different location).

I just checked my pH and it's 7.8!! I did a partial water change over a week ago, so the 25% of new tap water has had time to settle down, and now the whole tank's reading a high pH. I did not realize it was that high. Ammonia is zero.

Question: Is there any safe, reliable, practical way to get my tank's pH to around 7.0 (or 6.8!) and stay there? I want to get a female Blue Ram for my male (who's been in my tank since before the move back in August), and I'd like them to be able to breed. In 7.8?!

I once tried Perfect pH and got substantial gray sludge on my filter, along with very cloudy water. Never again.

Is there something that I can do? This pH is too high for most of my fish, I think, and there's no chance of breeding with the Rams. Help?

Anxiously awaiting your expertise,

-- Pat

[fishlips]

What is your ph out of the tap? Are rocks making ph climb? If not try search menu key words, (peat) and or (Driftwood)? I know people use peat to attain acidic conditions but you may have to experiment. Driftwood lowers ph also? What is opposite limestone?

[famman]

Peat is the only stable and reliable method of lowering PH that I have tried. It browns the water something fierce.
You can try boiling the peat (fluval makes pellets), for 1 minute pour off the water and repeat. This removes a great deal of the brown, but not all, and the peat still works.
I put 1 cup in my canister as an experiment and it lowered the PH in my 20 gal to 7.5 within a few hours. Charcoal overnight seemed to remove almost all of the residual color. Replace boiled peat every 2 to 3 weeks.

BTW a ph of 7.8 is not that terrible. I have many 7.0 ph fish that do just fine in ph 8.0. If you want to breed, that may be another matter.

good luck
:)

[O-man21]

There is a product call PH DOWn that I used once, it worked very well

[slipknottin]

the problem with chemical Ph adjusters is that the Ph in your tank will "bounce" if you have a high Kh. You should test your Kh first if you wish to use chemicals.

[famman]

Originally posted by O-man21
There is a product call PH DOWn that I used once, it worked very well

Well yeah, maybe once. Did you maintain a tank with a lower ph for an extended period of time? How difficult was it? How big a tank?

Not to pick on you O-man, I note that you're a 'Senior Member'. If you were successful in using ph down I'd be curious under what circumstances because with a ph of 8+, I'd like to find some way to deal with it in a reasonable way.

Like I said, of the things I've tried, peat was the only one that didn't require me to be a chemist just to mix my water and watch my freaking ph/gh/kh levels like a newborn. And since I've only experimented with peat for a few months, I can't even truly yet say it is stable and convenient over the long term, but it seems to be.

good luck
:)

Think of an aquarium as a fish space station, and YOU are the ground crew.

[slipknottin]

famman, i sent you a private message :)

[TheMightyQueenPixie]

Originally posted by slipknottin
the problem with chemical Ph adjusters is that the Ph in your tank will "bounce" if you have a high Kh. You should test your Kh first if you wish to use chemicals.

Took the words right out of my mouth...I have 7.8 water with a high kh (somewhere around 18 I believe) those pH buffers will work for a few hours, but then it rockets right back up again...A stable pH (even a high one) is better then a bouncing one. For the record, all of those fish are kept by people I know around me successfully...The only one that has been a bit of trouble is the Blue Rams...However, that breed has improved significantly (around me anyway) and the stock is much hardier then before. I know they are comming from Florida, so the fisheries must be improving the stock's hardiness...Hope this has helped

[NJ Devils Fan]

I tried some of those ph down stuff and it never worked, just ruined my tank.

[O-man21]

I used it when my oscar tank was a community tank and it worked and it stayed down.

[TheMightyQueenPixie]

O-Man it depends on how high your KH is...If youhave a high KH, forget it...Personally if I ever had the inclination to mess with my water, i'd get an R-O unit or use peat...Peat is the cheapest and the most gradual of them all..It is better in the long run just to leave it alone..Once you start messing with it you'll regret it.

[TnCgal]

MQP hit the nail on the head when she said that a higher, stable pH is far more important than a lower, fluctuating one.

Most accomplished ***********s will tell you that adjusting your pH thru chemical additives will only prove temporary and will eventually become WAY more of a headache than it is worth. Yes, pH down will work for a few hours but if you test your water again the next day you will find that it is close to the originating pH once again. The end result of adding and adding chemicals to your water over time will be that they will eventually wreak havoc on the rest of your water chemistry and causing a tremendous algae bloom from all the added phosphates that additives bring, lowering water quality for your fish. It can prove to be a huge catch-22.

These chemicals will temporarily "fix" one problem while creating another one. You will hardly ever hear of an experienced fishkeeper that uses these additives, but instead will try more natural approaches such as peat first ... that is, "if" you insist on changing your pH at all. IMO, 7.8 is at the higher end of being normal and IMO the effort you will put into struggling with your pH just will not be worth it.

[Cichlid Woman]

Okay ... tap water's coming out 7.2, but you KNOW it's going to be higher tomorrow when the CO2 has evaporated, etc. KH of 3 is measuring somewhere in a distant memory--which is strange, since I don't have a water hardness test kit. I think I might have had it done at an lfs--not sure. I could be wrong, too. But 3 does ring a bell ... I think I need to retest it, don't I.

I have two old, nice chunks of store-bought driftwood in there, and no rocks except the gravel--a dark colored, small grained "no-rinse" gravel bought from a well-known company (whose medium-brown gravel, by the way, which is NOT labeled as African cichlid mix, contains shell fragments ...). So no elements in the tank that I know of which would be raising the pH. Other ornaments include a medium-sized store-bought ceramic cave and castle.

"What is opposite limestone?" Say again? ...

I agree on the PhDown stuff. I've tried it in the past. Bounced right back up (that was at the other address, though ...)

So the solution is looking like peat. But I've heard that peat is unsteady and unreliable, because it fluctuates. True? I don't mind boiling it--and I'm already running Black Diamond activated charcoal, which I put in there a couple of days ago. (I've got an AquaClear 200 filter with a sponge and, now, the carbon. There's room for another filter media in there.)

Do I need to use peat pellets? Or just will "squishy" peat work? And I definitely hear you about fluctuating pH being a lot worse than just leaving it alone. But Blue Rams are my dream fish, and back when I had a smaller tank and hauling bottled water was a possibility, they were wonderful. I'd sure like to get that back, if I could. Which means lower pH. Which means ... peat?

THANK YOU and I await your replies with unabated interest ...

-- Pat

[wetmanNY]

How can you have such a long thread of posts about lowering pH when no one knows CichlidWoman's alkalinity ("carbonate" hardness).

CichlidWoman, if you have hard water and are considering peat filtration to lower the pH, better buy it by the bale at a garden center and start a big peat bucket. Teaspoonfuls of pelletized peat in the filter won't have any effect except in quite soft water.

Peat is not unreliable because of a fluctuation of any kind. Soft (and "softened") water is more lightly buffered, therefore its pH can fluctuate.

With two pairs of Kribs already among the mixed community in this 38-gallon tank,however, it's not likely that Rams will get the peace and quiet they'd need to pair up. In fact. if just one of those pairs of Kribs start breeding, life will be strenuous for the other pair, and all the neighbors too!

[TnCgal]

Cichlid woman,

With a KH of 3, you will want to be very careful. This is going to prove to be a difficult balancing act for you if you add peat... if your KH is "truly" 3 - which I sincerely hope it is not, because it's going to be hard to keep your pH stable if it is. In other words, peat makes the water softer. Softer than a KH of 3 and it will be increasingly difficult to keep your water's pH stable in the face of the slightest changes in water chemistry. It will be very vulnerable to wide pH swings that can prove disastrous for your fish. If your KH is truly 3 then we "may" want to reevaluate the whole peat idea, so I would suggest that be your starting point and come back and post the results, if you would.

BTW... if we decide to go in the peat direction, I buy my peat at Home Depot's garden department... just make sure the bag says "100% organic" because this will mean that there have been no added chemicals or fertilizers that can harm your fish. As long as it is labelled as 100% organic it is perfectly safe for your fish. You add it by putting some in a mesh baggie (which you can also get at Home Depot in the Paint department - they are used for straining paint) and put it in your filter compartment with your sponges. It's a good idea to change it every couple of weeks. It is not necessary to use carbon with peat... I never found it to be beneficial in absorbing anything but excess medications.

In any case, post back the results of your hardness test and we will take it from there. :)

EDIT :
Oops, Wetman... we would've posted at the same time except I had to let my post sit while I got called away ! Looks like we were on the same wavelength ! :)

[slipknottin]

If your Kh actually is only 3 then just let the tank go for awhile.

the Ph will drop on its own from dissolved organics and other natural processes that take place.

you might want to filter your source water through peat before adding it to the tank. especially if you want to do larger scale water changes.

[TheMightyQueenPixie]

I'd be much more concerned about a 3 kh, then a high pH

[wetmanNY]

In CichlidWoman's first post she mentioned: I once tried Perfect pH and got substantial gray sludge on my filter, along with very cloudy water.. I'd say the precipitation she describes is normally a symptom of very high dissolved solids. Though you've later posted KH of 3 is measuring somewhere in a distant memory--which is strange, since I don't have a water hardness test kit., could we ask you to do a KH test?

The thing is, a KH of 3 (low) but a pH of 7.8 (moderately high) don't add up, Pat. You'd have to have very low levels of carbon dioxide in the water, say from many plants furiously photosynthesizing under very powerful lighting...

Alkalinity and pH and carbon dioxide are all dependent on one another.

famman states: You can try boiling the peat (fluval makes pellets), for 1 minute. Pour off the water and repeat. This removes a great deal of the brown, but not all, and the peat still works. But I'd say that the golden peat color comes from the dissolved humic substances like tannin, that are binding calcium and magnesium ions. This is the softening effect of peat. So I feel that famman is washing a lot of potential softening out of the peat. Nevertheless, as famman says It browns the water something fierce.

[Barbie]

When I lived in Kansas City, my water was extremely hard (25 drops and no color change on my test kit so I decided I didn't really want to know just HOW hard it was). I was determined to keep my discus, so I set up a 29 gallon tank to hold nothing but pretreated water for water changes for my 55 gallon tank. I would add acid buffer every day for 3 days, let it stabilize for 2 days, then buffer it down one more time before using it for water changes, to a pH of 6.8. It was expensive, time consuming, and more than a wee bit obsessive of me, but it was effective also. I used that water to do the water changes on my spawning blue ram tank (10 gallon) also. Amazingly enough, the rams would raise 40 or 50 fry to free swimming in water that hard (then promptly eat them of course, grrr)

Here in Anchorage, our water is relatively soft, but is pretreated to a pH of 7.8 and relatively stable. I use a large garbage can and buffer the water still, but 2 days has it stable. Pretreating and aging water has been the only way I could keep blue rams healthy for any extended period of time. Discus are actually much easier for me to keep :)

Another method you could use, would be CO2 injection in your tank, if your tap water is coming out at 7.2. That would keep you from offgassing the CO2 in your tank and having the pH rise, but with your kH that low, you'd have to really monitor your pH. The buffering capacity could be exhausted and cause a major crash unless you added a small handful of coral to your filter, which will lead to still more of a balancing act.

Hope I didn't just confuse the issue more :)
Barbie

[fishlips]

As in sulfur? What would distilled or sping water do to ph and hardness.

[famman]

Wetman,
yeah boiling it probably reduces the effectiveness of the peat, but I have pretty soft water kh5 so it still works. I can't say very accurately how much boiling it lowers the effectiveness say 30 to 50 %.

:)

[Cichlid Woman]

Thanks, you guys. The next step is testing and posting KG. Should be tomorrow ...

-- Pat

[wetmanNY]

fishlips, you know that distilled water would dilute the concentration of dissolved solids. Very soft spring water would do nearly the same. But if it were a limestone spring... carbonates!

Soft water has a less-buffered pH. Just by definition. Lightly buffered pH may rise and fall.

[karfixer]

Co2 injection will lower your Ph as well-My tap water starts out @ 8.2, Gh-13, Kh-3 :eek:

[TnCgal]

Cichlid woman,

I'm going to move this thread over to the General FW forum since this is not directly a beginner's question ! :)

[Cichlid Woman]

Good God.

I did a GH and a KH test. I used American Pharmaceutical's "GH & KH Test" liquid test kits. Here's what I got:

KH: 8 (8 drops=143.2 ppm, right? Which is great for the range of fish I've got in my community tank, according to the enclosed flier ...)

GH: 22???!!!!! (That's twenty-two drops, folks, and I performed the test twice. Actually, the second time it was 23. Which is OFF THE SCALE. So everything in my tank should be dead?!)

Arrghhhh ... what have I GOT in there? I use treated tap water for all changes.

Please educate me. And where does this leave me in terms of the original question, lowering my pH?

Thanks so much for any info and help you can provide,

-- Pat

[Cichlid Woman]

Hi, folks,

I have to do a water change today, and after the GH/KH test results I posted last night, I don't know if I should be hauling seven or eight store-bought gallons of distilled water for the change or what. Can you please advise? (P.S.: I really do have to do a water change today, I didn't just repost to get my topic back to the top ... I know we're not supposed to do that. But it's hard(!) when you're really not sure what to do about something, especially a GH reading that's off the scale ... )

Thanks and please forgive the second post ...

-- Pat

[famman]

KH is more important to the aquarist than GH. There are others with excellent chemistry here who could answer your GH question more thouroghly.

Excerpts from - http://www.tomgriffin.com/aquasource/hardwater.shtml

"You can have high GH and low KH if the water has calcium or magnesium chlorides or sulfates or other salts rather than carbonates."

"In most native waters KH is the determinant of pH. Generally the higher the KH, the higher the pH. We need to have enough carbonate/bicarbonate buffer to protect our tanks from unexpected pH fluctuations or crashes,"

"I would suspect for GH 12 up perhaps as high as18 degrees would be within range, for KH perhaps a bit lower, much beyond KH 10 the pH is going to be getting out of range for many Amazonian water type, especially blackwater, fish."

I think your water is OK for your fish, sounds like a water softener run amok.

good luck
:)

[Cichlid Woman]

"A water softener run amok?" Would a messed up water softener run the GH way high? I rent, and as far as I know there's no water softener installed in the house I'm renting. Is this something I should be checking out? And is a KH of 8 too high to try to lower with peat or something?

I checked out DIY CO2 injection stuff this morning ... that lowers pH too, doesn't it? And it would sure help my plants. I'm rushing my daughter to finish off that liter of Pepsi ... but I don't want to do anything stupid. It looks simple, though. As long as the bottle won't explode ...

Thanks,

-- Pat

[amy]

the gravel--a dark colored, small grained "no-rinse" gravel bought from a well-known company (whose medium-brown gravel, by the way, which is NOT labeled as African cichlid mix, contains shell fragments ...).

Am I reading this wrong, or are there shell fragments in your gravel?

Maybe that's playing games with your pH...

[Cichlid Woman]

No, that's the gravel I refused to buy. I bought the same brand in a darker color, which does not contain the shell fragments. (This brand's medium-brown gravel contains shell fragments. The dark brown variety does not.)

-- P at

[rockhead44]

Bump because I am interested !

[Cichlid Woman]

What does "bump" mean? I've seen it before in posts, but never knew what it meant.

Thanks--

Pat

[fishlips]

Wetman, I'm lost! Lets say she brought her ph to 7.0 would it not stay then because the kh is too low? Would you then have to raise the kh to maintain the ph of 7? My water is completely opposite. Its about 6.8-7.0 and falls after time to around 6. That is because my kh is around 3 degrees? Otherwise it would not fall if higher? Correct? If so what is the min the kh could be to support a stable ph?

[jdheff1982]

A very effective way to bring down pH is to buy play sand!! I thought my pH was gonna be over 8, but I checked today and it is still maintaining a pH of 7.2. I find it really odd though. BTW, if a lfs has a pH of 7.8 and I have a pH of 7.2, will this be enough to put a fish in a bit of a shock??? Just wondering......

[rockhead44]

Cichlid Woman,"Bump" is when you reply to a message just to get it sent back up to the top of the list.Usually for further disscusion.

[wetmanNY]

fishlips, a chemist will give a better explanation than I can... I'm only two steps ahead on the same road... where's RTR?

...but it helps to think of pH as a result in the three-way relationship between CO2, the alkalinity (carbonate/bicarbonate buffer or "KH"), and pH. You can't actually force those H+ protons that are being counted as the pH.

Our "soft" unbuffered water sinks to the low sixes because there's so little dissolved bicarbonate to neutralize the acids produced by metabolisms: respiration, nitrification etc. "Bio-acidification." So carbon dioxide remains as dissolved carbon dioxide and a little dissociated as carbonic acid. Nowhere for those H+ to go. The result is acidity, measured in pH.

The buffer just stabilizes at a certain endpoint. That endpoint pH rises as you add more carbonates/bicarbonates, til finally all the CO2 is bound up in the system, at about hmm. is it pH 8.3?

Alkaline water has less and less available CO2 for plants... adding CO2 "dissolves" the carbonates.

C'mon you chemists!

[carpguy]

I'd definitely look into CO2. Even if its just the DIY variety, it should drive your pH down towards where you want it, and it'll be good for your plants. This handy chart (http://www.sfbaaps.com/reference/table_01.shtml) shows the relationship between the 3. So long as you keep up with it, it should be fairly stable. There is a good bit of info on CO2 in the Plants and the DIY forums.

I think it was Richer on a different thread who suggested keeping the DIY rig in a suitably small trashcan, the rubbermaidy kitchen sort, to help contain any unfortunate explosive incidents (that seemed to be a concern). A DIY bubble counter can also help keep potential yeast-mix spillovers out of the tank. Some folks seem to find the "jello-recipe" lasts a bit longer. I'll be trying all of this stuff as soon as decent buffer level in my much too soft water :rolleyes: … last readings were pH 6.2, KH 2.

[Sensei_the_dojo]

Originally posted by fishlips
As in sulfur? What would distilled or sping water do to ph and hardness.

Our local tap is very hard and very high ph. I found that if I mix it 50/50 with distilled water from Walmart I get a neutral ph. Don't know what effect it has on the hardness.

[125gJoe]

Originally posted by Sensei_the_dojo


Our local tap is very hard and very high ph.

Sensei,
It must be the result of those aliens and Area 51! ..(kidding..):)

(Art Bell retired..) :(

Hope things are good in Roswell. Welcome to Aquaria Central!

[jiggerpolebill]

cichlid woman - for what its worth, im in central indiana(not too far from you) and my water parameters are almost identical to yours(KH and GH especially). i havent/noticed too many problems with my fish under these conditions. the main thing ive tried to do is maintain consistancy in the tank.

[Cichlid Woman]

Sensei, when you do the half-and-half thing, does the water STAY at the new (lower) pH, or does it all go back up again after a few days in the tank? Maybe that's something I could try ... it's just about the only thing I haven't tried.

Due to my desire to grow plants that do not do well over pH 7.4, breed Blue Rams, and keep all my community fish happy, I've been trying to lower the pH on my 7.8 tank. Here's what I've tried recently:

1) DIY CO2 with a Pepsi bottle, yeast, hose, etc. Flopped miserably. It bubbled about five times the first evening and then nothing.

2) A Jungle "Fizz Factory." It works really well as far as it goes--over several days, my pH came down to 7.2, but only stayed there as long as I kept adding fizz tablets (I figured out that I'd need to use about 2 tablets a day, and a pack of 16 costs $7). And the large, plastic rectangle that sits inside the tank (CO2 holding tank and reactor--bell type) didn't do much for my tank's looks, either.

3) Sodium Biphosphate. An lfs owner with tapwater at 9.2 swears by this stuff, and says her tanks all hold at ph 7 without adding anything else to her water. I bought some and tried it. It did lower the pH, as long as I kept dosing, but now I've got slightly cloudy water because of suspended, undissolved mineral deposits or something resulting from the action of the Sodium Biphosphate. When I stopped dosing, the pH climbed again. (I called her back to ask about the cloudiness; she recommended I use a "Water Softening Pillow," a day on, a day off, and one more day on after each water change ... Aquarium Pharmaceutical sells both items, but I didn't buy the pillow. I gave up.)

Don't worry, all these changes (from 7.8 to 7.2 and back again) were done very slowly over a period of weeks, and no fish have suffered ill effects from what I can see. But, boy, am I discouraged.

The first time I measured my tank's KH, about a month ago when I began these adventures, I got a reading of 8. I measured it again a few days ago, and it was 12!! Arggghhhhhh.

I've got a 38-gal tank; lugging gallon jugs of distilled water is not an attractive prospect, but I'd do it if it would work. Would it work on a one-time basis, just to get my present tank where I want it? And then all I'd have to do is use whatever method I need on the new tap water for water changes later on?

I do NOT want to lug 7 or 8 gallons of water from the store every two weeks to do partial water changes. And I cannot afford injected CO2. But I do notice a difference in the fish's coloration, among other things, when they're in a pH of 7.2 or so as opposed to 7.8 or 8.0. You can see it especially on the black tetras--the silver/blue strip seems to be more ... er ... rusty looking or something on the blacks who have been in my tank longer. I could definitely see the difference when I put a few new ones in there with them, to bring the school up to nine.

I think the lower pH is good for the fish, although they do "okay" at a higher one. If there's any way to get my tank to 7.0 or thereabouts, I'd be one really happy camper. Does anybody have any suggestions? Sure would appreciate it.

-- Pat

[brackishwannbe]

I have a 29G community tank and have GH & KH over 500 ppm, each. Yea, I test it every week. My PH is 8.2, with the tap water being 7.8, even after setting out. Granted I have hardy fish and the only reason I lost fish were to more aggressive fish.

[carpguy]

Personally, I'd take another crack at the CO2. Try another yeast recipe, check for leaks in the setup. It seems like an ideal solution for a planted tank where you'd like to drop the pH on permanent and stable basis. I'm in the middle of setting one up, but a lot of people seem to have had success with it.

The distilled/RO option is just dilution. Distilled or RO water will have a KH of zero. X parts distilled mixed with X parts tap will give you a lower KH. When you add more tap you'll start to push the KH back up, unless you keep up with the distilled water. The effort and expense seem up there to me, but it should work fine.

[Harry Tolen]

I agree with WetmanNY that the data (KH of 3, pH of 7.8) don't appear to add up. If you want recommendations that will actually have a chance of improving the situation instead of making it worse, you are going to have to buy a test kit and do the Full Monty (GH, KH, pH), fresh out of the tap, sitting in a container for a day, and in your established tank. Tetra makes a test kit that is pretty inexpensive (especially when purchased on-line), so I suggest you get that and then get back to us.

[Cichlid Woman]

Harry, the KH is 12, up from 8 a month ago (not "3").

I have all the test kits you recommended; results are already posted on this thread. If it would help, I can do tests of the three areas you mention: right out of the tap, after sitting for a day, and tank. What's the rationale for doing the test right out of the tap? Can you explain for me, please?

-- Pat

[wetmanNY]

tch.

[Cichlid Woman]

Okay, here are those test results (I just completed them, using Aquarium Pharmaceuticals liquid test kits for all tests):

RIGHT OUT OF THE TAP:
pH 7.0
KH: 18
GH: 31
ammonia (as long as I had the test kits out ...): 0

TANK WATER:
pH 7.8
KH: 12
GH 23
ammonia: 0

I've got a beaker sitting with tap water right now, which I will test tomorrow (is letting it sit for one day enough time?)

Does anyone understand what these numbers may mean, or do we need to wait for the third test on the aged tapwater?

Thanks!!

-- Pat

[Harry Tolen]

I feel compelled to note that when I made my last post in this thread, I thought I was posting immediately after wetmanNY's comments about KH and pH (way back on page 1). How I missed the other two pages of commentary I cannot even begin to guess, unless it was another alien abduction episode (I hate it when they do that!). Sorry for the confusion that may have caused.

Thanks for posting your test results. Tomorrow let's see what the standing tap water results show.

P.S. The "Fizz Factory" tablets can be had for about $4.10/pack of 16 when purchased on-line. You should only need about 4 tablets a week to keep your pH in line according to their system specs. Perhaps a combination of R/O water and this would work for you (it would also help with plant growth, which might allow you to hide the unit behind some plants).

[Sensei_the_dojo]

Originally posted by Cichlid Woman
Sensei, when you do the half-and-half thing, does the water STAY at the new (lower) pH, or does it all go back up again after a few days in the tank? Maybe that's something I could try ... it's just about the only thing I haven't tried.

Cichlid Woman, my pH seems to stay fairly constant in the 7.0 - 7.2 range. I only have a 10 gal tank and do a 20% change every week. Distilled or OR water are both less than 60 cents/gal at Walmart, so 1 gal distilled mixed with 1 gal tap is neither a financial nor physical burden. I also have no live plants, and my livestock consist of 2 black mollies, 1 platy, 1 swordtail, 1 neon, 1 cory aeneus, 1 china butterfly loach and 1 dojo loach.

Hoping to move up to a 55 gal this year, not sure what I'll do then regarding pH.

Best regards,

[Cichlid Woman]

LOL, Harry--I've done that myself. I forget to hit the little underlined "2" or "3" at the bottom of the post before replying, then find out later there was more to read. I like the alien abduction explanation ...

Yes, I think the FizzTab, or at least some kind of CO2, was preferable to the sodium biphosphate. At least with CO2 my water was clear. I'm really hoping that posting the aged water's test results tomorrow will help some of you savvy folks tell me what's happening between that gorgeous 7.0 pH coming right out of my tap and the heavy-duty 7.8 residing in my tank.

Are you sure 4 tabs a week would do it? Also, I thought about hiding the "bell" thing behind some plants, but it sticks out about three inches at least, so that might be hard to do.

Anyway, I'll post the test parameters tomorrow on the "aged" tapwater.

Thanks for the help, you guys.

-- Pat

[Harry Tolen]

CW: In the Drs. Foster & Smith catalog, the Fizz Factory section says "add 1 tablet to each 10 gallons of aquarium water once a week." That's how I came up with the 4 tablets/week number for your tank. I don't know how this system generates its C02, but it's so darned inexpensive that I'm tempted to buy one just to see how it works. Unless they don't tell you...how much info came with yours when you bought it?

BTW, what did your final set of water tests show?

[Cichlid Woman]

"Aged" water parameters:

pH (a faint) 7.8, which means somewhere betwee 7.6 and 7.8?
KH: 18
GH: 32

What does this mean? Here were the other parameters:

Out of the tap:
pH 7.0
KH: 18
GH: 31

Tank water:
ph: 7.8
KH: 12
GH: 23

Help?! What do these numbers mean as far as lowering my pH in any successful way? And for my plants, lowering pH will not increase the CO2 in the water in and of itself, will it. My plants are getting by okay, I guess; it's the pH I'd like to get down, as explained in a prior post--for the fish.

Harry, the instructions that came with the Fizz Factory say for a tank "over 30," to dose "up to twice a day," and I found that to be necessary in my tank--but probably because the numbers on GH and KH were just driving the pH back up, true? I'm so confused ...

Do you have any ideas about the ugly bell CO2 holding chamber/dissipator?

For the rest of you guys, I sure would appreciate a layman's interpretation of what these numbers mean.

Thanks!!!

-- Pat

[Harry Tolen]

I have borrowed this chart from TheKrib.com to show the relationship that wetmanNY mentioned between KH, pH, and CO2. I hope that this attribution is enough to keep me out of jail. A couple of observations: 5 mg/l of C02 is generally thought to be the minimum required for photosynthesis, and 35-40 mg/l is acceptable for decent plant growth.

"The relationship of CO2 , pH and KH
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
\ pH | 6.0 6.2 6.4 6.6 6.8 7.0 7.2 7.4 8.0
KH\ |
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
0.5 | 15 9.3 5.9 3.7 2.4 1.5 0.9 0.6 0.2
1.0 | 30 19 12 7 5 3 1.9 1.2 0.3
1.5 | 44 28 18 11 7 4 2.8 1.8 0.4
2.0 | 59 37 24 15 9 6 4 2.4 0.6
2.5 | 73 46 30 19 12 7 5 3 0.7
3.0 | 87 56 35 22 14 9 6 4 0.9
3.5 | 103 65 41 26 16 10 7 4 1.0
4.0 | 118 75 47 30 19 12 6 5 1.2
5.0 | 147 93 59 37 23 15 9 6 1.5
6.0 | 177 112 71 45 28 18 11 7 1.8
8.0 | 240 149 94 59 37 24 15 9 2.4
10 | 300 186 118 74 47 30 19 12 3
15 | 440 280 176 111 70 44 28 18 4
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
| CO2 milligrams/liter"

Your KH of 18 out of the tap would make it virtually impossible to achieve a reasonable pH and C02 concentration (that's my guess as to why your fizzy tablets get used up so fast). Thus you really need to consider a combination of R/O water and C02 injection to get your numbers into balance. Without going into the technical details, here's my recommendation:

01. Get an R/O unit from one of the reputable on-line retailers. Big Al's or Drs. Foster & Smith come to mind. The low-capacity units are "only" about $60.00. It'll be a lot cheaper and less work than schlepping gallons of distilled water home from the store. Set it up in the garage, and run it into a Rubbermaid trash bin. This will give you a long-term supply of water that is very close to 0 KH to use to dilute your tap supply. Make (3) 20% water changes using this R/O water only, and then use a 50/50 mix of this water and your tapwater whenever you are doing water changes in your tank. This will reduce your KH to close to 9.

02. Then use the Fizz Factory at 4 tablets per week. After a month, test the KH and pH, and it should show a reduction in pH (and probably KH as well). I'm not going to guess where you'll end up, but I'd love to see the results at the end of this experiment.

Good luck.

[Cichlid Woman]

Arrrggghhhh!!!! That's what I was afraid of ...

Oh crud, Harry, I think you're right.

... okay, I'm all right now (sigh).

Are we saying the low-capacity (cheap) CO2 pressurized setup won't handle it connected directly to my tank, because my tank's too large? And there'd be so much hardware on there it would be a lot more ugly than the Fizz Factory thingie, wouldn't it?

I'm amazed my plants are making it at all.

Argghhh.

-- Pat

[Harry Tolen]

No, I just didn't think you'd want to use a pressurized C02 system because of the cost and potential inconvenience. I actually have three such systems, all of which are currently non-operational because of various problems with valves, solenoids, and regulators, and I wouldn't wish that on anyone.

If you're willing to spend the $$$, however, and want to try an alternative (one that I myself am considering), look at the Carbo-Plus system (available on-line, of course).

Lest I prejudice you against all technology, however, let me say that R/O systems have never given me any problems (I used them constantly when I lived in Los Angeles). I just don't need 'em now, because there is almost no hardness in the water that comes through my tap (my challenge is buffering it, not softening it).