Washing the gravel with acid?

What kind of gravel? What will you be putting in the tank? Try that on gravel that's already been rinsed. Most likely, all that is hissing is the dust, which washes away on it's own. If it's the gravel itself...so long as you're not aiming for a low pH, it's unlikely to have much impact on your tank other than a bit of buffering, which is a good thing.

like oniongirl said, if the gravel itself contains something like limestone, surface treating it with acid isn't going to affect the long term pH -- to maintain a low pH in the long term, you would have to use enough acid to completely dissolve the limestone part of the gravel, which isn't do-able and certainly not cost-effective.

if you really need a low pH, perhaps you need to find a more inert gravel

I wouldn't worry about it. Just have wood in the tank and maybe some peat moss. That would give you an ideal sa water peram. You can get peat from home improvement stores for cheap. Place it in a sock and rinse it well. You will get some tannins in the water but you can adjust the volume of peat to get the perams how you want with the tannins level you like. Weather it be non existent or a nice tea color.

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it's usually better to not play with pH.

if you are adding fish that were captive bred and raised there prob isn't much need to alter the pH.

what it the normal pH of your water and is there a change when you add the gravel?
btw, if you really want to set up a SA tank you would prob be better with sand....

I wouldn't be adding peat to the substrate...just seems like a mess waiting to happen. If you have room in the filter and still want to add some, you can put some there.

But I agree with Star, if you are buying captive-bred fish there likely isn't a reason to be messing with the pH or water chemistry at all.

Turin Turambar said:

You are right. That was the recommendation that I got from one plants keeper. There's no doubt it's good for plant roots, but it would be a real mess if peat emerged from the surface... I'll buy JBL florapol instead. Thanks!

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Yeah don't put it in the substrate. If you use peat put it in a sock that will keep it contained. Even in captive fish the addition of a tannic water system will incread the activity. I have noticed and extreme rise in activity from my rays since adding peat to the system.

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