Help Please - Peat "emergency"

Good activated carbon will remove the tannins, but I make no promises on the quantity required. It takes a lot of carbon to clear a lot of tannins. Water changes are cheaper IME.

Well water tapped from a deep or fractured stone aquifer can be just as high in gases, expecially CO2, as a community system.
 
Since most respiratory processes give off CO2, it's not really surprising that well/underground water would have high CO2 levels. I imagine that there's not very good gas exchange underground, and even then CO2 takes 10 times longer to equilibrate with the atmosphere than other gases.

I second the water changes. Carbon is fine, but if you really want to get something out of your closed system, you need to fully remove it, not just sequester it.
 
Thanks for your replies.

We do have a deep granite well, so that goes well with what RTR says.

Re: water changes. I am all for water changes! :D But.... I will be dumping in water (tap, store bought, or R/O) that has a ph of 8.0 in this area. :( Maybe I should have never started with the peat, but I truly wanted to get the ph at a more "normal" level for the fish I have. Anyone else in this situation of high ph tap water that has tried to keep tanks at a lower ph? I don't want my fish to suffer from ph shock.

Thanks again.
 
It's really not advisable to suggest any tinkering with pH without first knowing KH/alkalinity. I could go a step further and say that tinkering with pH period is a mixed proposition. Stable is better than "ideal". Go with what ya got.
 
Originally posted by happychem
It's really not advisable to suggest any tinkering with pH without first knowing KH/alkalinity. I could go a step further and say that tinkering with pH period is a mixed proposition. Stable is better than "ideal". Go with what ya got.
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What he said.

I once heard someone say that flying a helicopter was a bit like holding a cookie sheet in your hands, placing a marble on it, and then trying to control where the marble goes. I think water chemistry is a little like that. Each aspect of water chemistry seems to be tied to another so that altering any one aspect, say pH, is bound to have an effect on another.

At the very least you should know as much as humanly possible about your water's existing chemistry before you try to alter it.

Tom
 
Nice tank photos, Tom!

Well hmmm... now wishing I would have waited on the peat. I have actually had it here a while, and after spending hours reading forums and on the phone to the water dept., Culligan, Kent Marine, peat company, etc., etc., I finally took the plunge. :o

I did order a GH/KH test yesterday, thanks to a post earlier in this thread.

So... I agree that stable is best! Was hoping to maintain stable at ph 7-ish, but maybe that won't be possible. Especially since I am not so fond of brown water. :p

Any advice for going forward? Just use tap water and with small water changes the ph shift (back to 8) would be very small increments? Or?

Good news... fish are all fine.

Thanks everyone
 
I sent in a return to Foster&Smith, so my order going out (with GH/KH test) won't be for awhile, but I'll post my test results here.

Wasn't planning on a CO2 system (but then again, haven't planned for a lot of this fish stuff. :p ), but I have read a bit about a DIY CO2 system that didn't sound too hard...?

Does Flourish Excel lower the ph at all?

Forever a fish newbie,

Janet
 
Originally posted by glassfish
Nice tank photos, Tom!
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Thanks :)

The driftwood won't leech tannins forever. Its dead so there's no unlimited supply there. Over time the water will clear and the wood's effect on your pH will diminish. How long that takes depends on the size of the wood, size of the tank, number, frequency and size of water changes, and the buffer of your tank.

The piece of driftwood in my 8 gallon hex tank with slightly hard water and weekly 25% water changes (no carbon) stopped turning the water brown after about two weeks or less.

Tom
 
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