Tetra makes a product called "Blackwater Extract." I've used it when breeding bettas. It adds a nice clear-brown tinge to the water. You can probably get at your LFS....definitely available from Fosters & Smith.
can I use teabags to add tannins to the water?
- Thread starter fishcatch22
- Start date
my question is why do you want to mess with your pH? peat can cause the pH of a tank to be unstable. what is you pH now? if the fish are doing fine now, dont change the pH or it will stress them.
BTW, you should be doing water changes every week, especially with a pleco in a 10 gallon.
BTW, you should be doing water changes every week, especially with a pleco in a 10 gallon.
By naturally adding things to your tank such as peat, crushed coral, etc.. It actually changes the chemistry of your water, unlike chemical additives that only work temporarily.
I personally use crushed coral, and dolomite in all of my tanks because i have a ph under 6, it keeps my ph stable at arolnd 7.2.
There are many reasons why you would want to raise or lower the ph of your water. The reason I chose to was because I inject co2 and didnt want to risk my ph crashing.
It isn't "bad" to change the ph of your water so long as you know what youre doing , and are doing it with a reason, not just because your ph doesnt read a certain number..
Remember, fish do not read PH, a stable PH that isn't the specific PH for a fish is better than a constantly changing one.
Blue
simple. I want recreate a SE/SA rainforest slow-flowing blackwater stream as accurately as possible. peat slowy and safely lowers pH, and maintains it there.
my tank is so overgrown I can't see the gravel on the bottom. my nitrates stay at 0, even after 2 weeks. I only do WCs every 2 weeks to get rid of mulm to stop my worm population from booming, I coulkd conceiveably go a month or two between WCs.
You might be interested in this old thread about using tea (by wetmanNY of skepticalaquarist.com ):
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1528&highlight=tea
http://www.aquariacentral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1528&highlight=tea
