PH and Hardness

[Troy992]

Is my KH keeping my PH so high?

KH=20
GH=1
PH=7.8

[Rbishop]

Are those readings on your tap ot tank? If tank, what are they on your tap?

[Troy992]

thats my tap and tank at this time, I have a whole house water softner. I just dont understand how to lower my ph. can I have a pH of 7 and still have a KH=20?

[SirWired]

thats my tap and tank at this time, I have a whole house water softner. I just dont understand how to lower my ph. can I have a pH of 7 and still have a KH=20?

If possible, you should use non-softened water in your tank. Water softeners work by substituting one ion for another. The ion they happen to replace your hardness with is Sodium. This is not really a very good thing.

SirWired

[Troy992]

is the sodium why my KH is so high?

whats not so good about the sodium?

do I have to lower KH to lower pH?

I guess this is why I never have to add salt (salt level never drops below 2800ppm) to the swimming pool when I top it off with the softner water?

[Max]

You don't have to lower kh to affect ph it usually works the other way around. The kh is carbonate hardness ,"minerals in solution" as your ph falls some of it will start to precipitate out of the solution. In this case it's probably not possilbe for the nacl ions to percipitate. Do you know what the specific gravity of your water is? I'd guess that with the softener that it might well be almost brakish water. I might be wrong though.
hth
max
sorry saw a water chemistry question and couldn't help myself. ;)

[Troy992]

using the salt water gravity meter i used for my marine tank it is not even @ 1.0 or 0 ppm??

I also didnt mention the fact that after my softner it is run thru a drinking water 2 filter system? 1 removes pesticides and cycst, and the other is just a carbon filter to remove tatses.

[Troy992]

pic of water from tank in meter?

[Troy992]

would i taste this sodium in the water? we drink the same water that goes in the tank?

[CaptnDan]

No, you won't. There isn't that much in there. It usually cannot be measured without electronic instrumentation.

As to the carbon filters, etc... If you were wondering if they remove salt - no, they will not. Ther only ways to remove dissolved salt are distillation, RO, or RO/DI.

[TwoTankAmin]

This should help you:

Buffering Capacity (KH, Alkalinity)

Buffering capacity refers to water's ability to keep the pH stable as acids or bases are added. pH and buffering capacity are intertwined with one another; although one might think that adding equal volumes of an acid and neutral water would result in a pH halfway in between, this rarely happens in practice. If the water has sufficient buffering capacity, the buffering capacity can absorb and neutralize the added acid without significantly changing the pH. Conceptually, a buffer acts somewhat like a large sponge. As more acid is added, the ``sponge'' absorbs the acid without changing the pH much. The ``sponge's'' capacity is limited however; once the buffering capacity is used up, the pH changes more rapidly as acids are added.
Buffering has both positive and negative consequences. On the plus side, the nitrogen cycle produces nitric acid (nitrate). Without buffering, your tank's pH would drop over time (a bad thing). With sufficient buffering, the pH stays stable (a good thing). On the negative side, hard tap water often almost always has a large buffering capacity. If the pH of the water is too high for your fish, the buffering capacity makes it difficult to lower the pH to a more appropriate value. Naive attempts to change the pH of water usually fail because buffering effects are ignored.

In freshwater aquariums, most of water's buffering capacity is due to carbonates and bicarbonates. Thus, the terms ``carbonate hardness'' (KH), ``alkalinity'' and ``buffering capacity'' are used interchangeably. Although technically not the same things, they are equivalent in practice in the context of fishkeeping. Note: the term ``alkalinity'' should not be confused with the term ``alkaline''. Alkalinity refers to buffering, while alkaline refers to a solution that is a base (i.e., pH > 7).

How much buffering does your tank need? Most aquarium buffering capacity test kits actually measure KH. The larger the KH, the more resistant to pH changes your water will be. A tank's KH should be high enough to prevent large pH swings in your tank over time. If your KH is below roughly 4.5 dH, you should pay special attention to your tank's pH (e.g, test weekly, until you get a feel for how stable the pH is). This is ESPECIALLY important if you neglect to do frequent partial water changes. In particular, the nitrogen cycle creates a tendency for an established tank's pH to decrease over time. The exact amount of pH change depends on the quantity and rate of nitrates produced, as well as the KH. If your pH drops more than roughly two tenths of a point over a month, you should consider increasing the KH or performing partial water changes more frequently. KH doesn't affect fish directly, so there is no need to match fish species to a particular KH.
From http://fins.actwin.com/aquariafaq.html