pH 7.8!!

Wetman,
yeah boiling it probably reduces the effectiveness of the peat, but I have pretty soft water kh5 so it still works. I can't say very accurately how much boiling it lowers the effectiveness say 30 to 50 %.

:)
 
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fishlips, you know that distilled water would dilute the concentration of dissolved solids. Very soft spring water would do nearly the same. But if it were a limestone spring... carbonates!

Soft water has a less-buffered pH. Just by definition. Lightly buffered pH may rise and fall.
 
Cichlid woman,

I'm going to move this thread over to the General FW forum since this is not directly a beginner's question ! :)
 
Good God.

I did a GH and a KH test. I used American Pharmaceutical's "GH & KH Test" liquid test kits. Here's what I got:

KH: 8 (8 drops=143.2 ppm, right? Which is great for the range of fish I've got in my community tank, according to the enclosed flier ...)

GH: 22???!!!!! (That's twenty-two drops, folks, and I performed the test twice. Actually, the second time it was 23. Which is OFF THE SCALE. So everything in my tank should be dead?!)

Arrghhhh ... what have I GOT in there? I use treated tap water for all changes.

Please educate me. And where does this leave me in terms of the original question, lowering my pH?

Thanks so much for any info and help you can provide,

-- Pat
 
Hi, folks,

I have to do a water change today, and after the GH/KH test results I posted last night, I don't know if I should be hauling seven or eight store-bought gallons of distilled water for the change or what. Can you please advise? (P.S.: I really do have to do a water change today, I didn't just repost to get my topic back to the top ... I know we're not supposed to do that. But it's hard(!) when you're really not sure what to do about something, especially a GH reading that's off the scale ... )

Thanks and please forgive the second post ...

-- Pat
 
KH is more important to the aquarist than GH. There are others with excellent chemistry here who could answer your GH question more thouroghly.

Excerpts from - http://www.tomgriffin.com/aquasource/hardwater.shtml

"You can have high GH and low KH if the water has calcium or magnesium chlorides or sulfates or other salts rather than carbonates."

"In most native waters KH is the determinant of pH. Generally the higher the KH, the higher the pH. We need to have enough carbonate/bicarbonate buffer to protect our tanks from unexpected pH fluctuations or crashes,"

"I would suspect for GH 12 up perhaps as high as18 degrees would be within range, for KH perhaps a bit lower, much beyond KH 10 the pH is going to be getting out of range for many Amazonian water type, especially blackwater, fish."

I think your water is OK for your fish, sounds like a water softener run amok.

good luck
:)
 
"A water softener run amok?" Would a messed up water softener run the GH way high? I rent, and as far as I know there's no water softener installed in the house I'm renting. Is this something I should be checking out? And is a KH of 8 too high to try to lower with peat or something?

I checked out DIY CO2 injection stuff this morning ... that lowers pH too, doesn't it? And it would sure help my plants. I'm rushing my daughter to finish off that liter of Pepsi ... but I don't want to do anything stupid. It looks simple, though. As long as the bottle won't explode ...

Thanks,

-- Pat
 
the gravel--a dark colored, small grained "no-rinse" gravel bought from a well-known company (whose medium-brown gravel, by the way, which is NOT labeled as African cichlid mix, contains shell fragments ...).
Click to expand...

Am I reading this wrong, or are there shell fragments in your gravel?

Maybe that's playing games with your pH...
 
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