RO water for use in a freshwater aquarium, mixing question.

[wesleydnunder]

I would recommend baking soda to raise the KH of the water, but baking soda is a base. It will raise the KH though. What you might be able to do is run some peat moss in the tank. I'm not very sure about peat moss, for I have high PH fish and therefore can't experiment with it.

Raising the KH is counter-productive for lowering the ph, as the OP stated his original intent is. Raising the alkalinity will buffer the ph up, not down and will offset the addition of peat or other acidifiers.

OP - I would follow RBishop and Mg's advice and learn more about your source water and its parameters before monkeying with the water chemistry.

Mark

 

[gmh]

Your local fish store may be able to test your water parameters and give you advice, but expertice at these places varies. Your best cost effective bet is to invest a few bucks into an API liquid gh/kh l test. I try to keep my gh well under 100ppm and kh under 70ppm. In my case that means 90% RO and 10% rock hard local tap water. Your water could be much softer than mine...

 

[1oooop]

Raising the KH is counter-productive for lowering the ph, as the OP stated his original intent is. Raising the alkalinity will buffer the ph up, not down and will offset the addition of peat or other acidifiers.

OP - I would follow RBishop and Mg's advice and learn more about your source water and its parameters before monkeying with the water chemistry.

Mark

sorry for being ambiguous, I did say that baking soda will raise PH. I don't know if I worded it wrong or something. Heck, that's one of the things I need to work on .

 

[ianab]

As you want softer water, then RO water is a good starting point, but as you know, pure RO is not good for fish, zero hardness, unstable pH etc.

So what you need to do is work out what hardness you need, and what hardness your tap water is. Maybe 50/50 will be OK, that will drop your tap water hardness by 50%. Maybe it's 70 / 30, maybe 90 / 10 ?

Once you get the hardness right, then a bit of driftwood or peat will drop the pH into the ideal range.

But the ratio you need depends on YOUR tap water.

Ian