Vinegar to Lower PH?

[PikeLee]

Anyone ever use vinegar to lower PH? Will it also soften water as well? I’m no chemist, but I read in a book that they used vinegar to lower their PH.

Anyone have first hand experience?

[wetmanNY]

What your alkalinity, called your "KH" because it's counted as if it were all calcium carbonates-- what your alkalinity is, is the ability of your buffering to resist the acids-- whatever kind of acid, including acetic acid-- you might add to the water.

What fish that are associated with an acidic pH are really responding to, is very "soft" water, with very few dissolved salts, including the carbonates of your "KH" test, but also the other dissolved salts, like sulfates and chlorides.

[Faramir]

Acetic acid is a weak acid, meaning it doesn't dissociate much. To get the all important H+ ions, you need to add quite a bit.

You may have noticed that vinegar has quite a noticeable smell. I suppose the bottom line is whether you really want an aquarium that smells like pickled onions.

Sushi in salad dressing anyone?

(Hey - get some anaerobic substrate going and you might end up with pickled eggs - sorry...I'll get me coat....)

[karfixer]

I've used it, and continue to. The amount required is small- it is quite acitic, though the amount will vary with your water condition. My water has a low Kh 4Dh but a high Ph 8.2 and Gh of 12-13Dh. The vinegar doesn't affect Gh or Kh according to my test sets but does affect Ph pretty dramatically. I add Sodium Bicarbonate to increase buffering (Kh) to help stabilize the final Ph. The amount of vinegar that I use is 2Tbls per 5 Gal of water and the smell dissapates pretty quickly :rolleyes: . The fish in my tanks are Gold Gouramis, Clown Loaches, a "common" Pleco and a Giant Daino. The Gouramis have spawned and the fry have grown quite successfully with the water treatment I have discribed.

[thom336]

i woudnt use vinegar, and it wont lower your hardness. store your water over peat to lower the pH and hardness, or use a reverse osmosis unit in the ratio of 80% RO water to 20% dechlorinated tapwater.

[wetmanNY]

karfixer has a low alkalinity-- a low "KH"-- which makes pH flexible. That's how karfixer can drop the pH with some vinegar.

If you have more alkalinity-- more buffering-- the pH won't budge for you as easily.

[PikeLee]

Sorry for the late replies. Life gets in the way sometimes. That plus I don’t get emails when someone replies to the post. They gotta fix that.

Oh well. Thanks for all the replies. My water is PH 7.9 to 8.2 (it changed recently to 7.9), GH 7, and KH of 3 from the Tap. So using Vinegar shouldn’t be that bad. Have you seen any affects on any sensitive fish you might have?

I like the whole Peat thing and I tried it a couple of times. But I still have to find a way to really strain the peat very well without that much work. I put it in a stocking and let it sit in a bucket with a powerhead running. After I’m done, the powerhead is filled with some of the peat. Trying to find some material that can really hold the peat in and still be permeable enough to let the water flow through it. Maybe a big coffee filter or something similar?

BTW, I’m glad to hear that the smell goes away.
:D

[zmaj101]

Up here in Utah, we have very hard, high pH mountain water. My water is about 8.4 out of the tap. I have had no troubles keeping any kind of fish in it. I've had a few tanks, and kept about 15 different species of fish through the years, any my experience is that if you can't have an ideal pH, you'll do fine with a consistent pH. Granted, I haven't been able to breed most fish that like softer, more acidic environments, they have lived and been happy for years.

Most fish can adjust to less than ideal pH and hardness. What they can't adjust to is constant changes to pH and water hardness. My advice is to do the best you can with what you have. Good luck!

[RENEGADE]

pikelee what about cheese cloth?

[PikeLee]

I don't have a problem with keeping fish at higher/harder water conditions. I have a couple of tanks where I do not adjust the tap at all.

I'm just trying to breed a certain species that prefer very soft, low ph water. I know that the Vinegar would only adjust the PH, but I just want to experiment with various methods and see what works for me.

Renegade,
What's a cheese clothe? I never seen one before. I take it that that's available in a grocery store? Is the material similar to coffee filter or more a stocking.

As I mentioned before. I like the whole peat thing, but once all the debri gets released, it clogs up my sponge filter.

But I'm down to try anything. Hopefully I can find a cheese clothe and see how that works.

Cheers.

[wetmanNY]

Pike Lee (excellent name!) the trick to controlling peat is to wet it first with boiling water. Those fibers swell and lock together better. Otherwise they blow around and drive you wild!

How about rainwater? Filtered of course. Anything useful to you at www.skepticalaquarist.com in the Water folder, under "Softening"?

[PikeLee]

Wetman, Thanks for the info and the compliment (I’m really into dwarf pikes). I actually got the idea of the peat from looking at your website. I believe you helped out before when I first decided to use Peat.

When I first used it, I didn’t boil it. I just ran it under hot water from the shower and then tossed it in a bucked with the powerhead. I thought that the only thing the boiling would do was sink the Peat. Which really didn’t matter to me since the powerhead would suck the nylon sock of peat down to the bottom of the bucket. I didn’t realize that it would expand the Peat the way that you had explained.

Initially I just felt weird about boiling Peat. But I’m going to give it a second shot, as I hear Water Softness is more important than the lower PH.

As for rainwater…I’ll take my chances with Peat. Living in New York, you never know what you’re going to end up with. Thanks for the help and wish me luck. (It’s been a while since any of my fish spawned :mad: , and I’m thinking it’s the water).