Blackwater Help

mooman

Scratch my belly Human!
Mar 8, 2005
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Columbus, OH
Blackwater Help Please

Yesterday I attempted to lower my ph for the first time using peat. My tank water is ph=7.2 kh=2 gh=7. I used r/o water purchased from a reputable lfs to do a 50% water change. I added to the water, peat extract, which I made by boiling several cups of water with several cups of peat for 45 min. I ran this through a coffee filter and slowly added it to the r/o water. The ph would not come below 7.0. I did the 50% water change using this water. Now I have a slightly cloudy (not just discolored, I expected that) tank with the same ph as when I started. Today I added about 10 times (50ml) the recommended dosage of tetra blackwater extract to another 5g bucket of r/o water and only managed to change the water color to brown and lower the ph to 6.8 on one test, and 7.0 using a different brand of ph tester.

What gives?!?!?!?!?

shouldn't it be very easy to affect the ph of r/o water? Should I even use this water for a water change?

I need some advise here guys and gals
 
Last edited:
What I did to lower my pH (it took like 2 weeks for me even with r/o water) was I put peat in the filter bag. Ever since then my pH has been stable at 6.5.
 
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