Peat PH and KH

[Curtis]

What do you think about using peat to lower the ph from 7.6 maybe 7.8 (my fancy ph meter was just delivered today so I haven't had a chance to mess with it yet) to around 7, if the KH of the water is 3.

My concern is peat drops ph and kh... and since the kh of the water is 3, will the peat drop the kh low enough to make the ph unstable?

This is in regards to keeping many loach species and their senstivity to ph and water parameters.

Any thoughts.

Thanks.

[greenbaron]

Years ago I used a product called Amazon River Peat pellets (still have some, actually) with success, but in my opinion you are correct that eventually the buffering capacity of water thus treated will become an issue. After using peat pellets, I used Amazon buffer which was a blend of "organic and inorganic acids" that was supposed to soften the water and buffer the pH. I used that for many years... until I figured out that my pH was bottoming out. So, I think whatever agent you use to lower the pH and soften the water, eventually you have to add other stuff to buffer the water to keep the pH from dropping out. Bottom line, I think peat is a good way to go initially. Better than adding some pH UP chemical... just don't do like me and stop monitoring your chemistry. It doesn't appear possible to reach a stable end product when you are forever having to alter the input (fresh water)! These days I am just using a water softener pillow (metal sponge) after water changes, and having no trouble maintaining the following with my hard, mid-range pH tap water:
gh 2.24 dh
kh 1.12 dh
ph 6.0
But, I'd love to hear what others think on this...

[greenbaron]

The decimal places used to provide my hardness values in dh units are misleadingly accurate looking...
I should've just said

GH 40 mg/L
KH 20 mg/L

[chefkeith]

Article on kH-
http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/CO2/khgh.html

If you add peat and keep doing drip water changes consistently the kH might slowly drop, but it should eventually plateau and be stable. You'll just have to wait for that plateau.

With a steady kH, the pH will go up and down daily based on CO2 fluctuations in the water that is caused by photosysnthesis. These changes are not harmful to fish.

You might have a 7.2 pH in the morning, but a 7.6 pH at night because algae/plants and microbes are using CO2. When the lights are off, the CO2 is usually given a chance to build back up, so the pH drops.

But if your tank has lots of aeration and water movement, then the CO2 levels probably won't be allowed to build up, so the plants/algae and micrboes will use the water's kH instead of the CO2. If this is the case, you'll need to figure out how you want to play around with the water parameters.


Myself, I've have about 200# of driftwood and about 150# of concrete in my tanks. The 2 things seem to balance themselves out nicely. Since water is constantly flowing around the concrete island, the concrete acts as huge a biological filter and buffer for the water.

This biofilter creates H+ ions and they bind with the H- ions of the concrete. Also, the excess H+ ions leaching from the driftwood bind with the H- ions of the concrete. That's in theory.

The chemical reaction would be- Bicarbonate (HCO3-) + acid (H+) = water (H2O) + carbon dioxide (CO2). The CO2 gets aerated out or used up by the plants/algae and microbes, leaving only pure water.

[Diana]

What cheifkeith said!

I would try the peat moss. When the KH is moderate (or low) the peat moss has a good chance of lowering the pH, and certainly will add organic acids to the water. This replicates the blackwater environment that so many rain forest fish come from, even if the pH is not right.
The constant trickle change ought to add a little KH to the tank and will replace what the plants and other life may use. If you find it is dropping too low you could trickle the water in, allowing it to flow over a cuttlebone or through some oyster shell grit (sold for budgies and other small birds)

[greenbaron]

chefkeith, that's a very comprehensive article and by the way, you have an incredible set-up (i checked out your videos) !!!
Thanks for posting. Really awesome river tank. And I never knew they would eat chicken so, voraciously!!!
I have never really figured out why my kH dropped out so low, and I have been trying for a few years now to stabilize things in my 75 gal. I did water changes with my tap water untreated for a long time and not even that had any impact on the KH or pH (only result was the GH went up - thus, I have gone back to using the metal sponge I mentioned).
I do not have any concrete, nor any plants, but I do have a lot of driftwood, some of which is probably QUITE old by now. I guess that is the source of my troubles, but it is the only decoration I have in the tank and the loaches like it, so it stays for now. (Speaking of wood, what do you think of the mopani in a clown loach tank?)
Where does one get calcium carbonate for the purpose of raising the kH in the tank? I do have oyster shell, which I use for both my chickens and my orchids, but I don't have a drip system, so the only thing I can think of there would be to put a small amount in one of my filters... this, as with the peat pellets though, would seem to be a kind of clumsy and imprecise way to go about it? I just hate adding chemicals to the tank. Your thoughts?

[chefkeith]

thanks greenbaron. I try to have a balanced ecosystem.

I don't really understand your situation. What are the parameters of your tap water?
You use a water softning pillow? Does this reduce the gH and kH? You want to increase the kH?

Anyways, mopani is very nice driftwood.

Time for a donut and some coffee.

[greenbaron]

I'm not meaning to hijack this thread, but I guess my problem is exactly what the initial poster anticipated in his query- my tap water is moderately hard and fairly alkaline. I've always treated the water in some way to obtain soft, slightly acidic water. First with peat, later with a blended additive. Been softening the general hardness with a water softener pillow. The only "decoration" in the tank is driftwood. It's been in there a long time, and is slowly decaying. Past few years I have not been able to get either the kH or pH up. After trying all the pH UP and 6.5 FIXIT, etc, etc, I resorted to just using plain tap water in my water changes - nothing has worked. I have a pH that is consistently 6.0, and the kH is at the lowest measureable reading my current test provides. The untreated tap water only raised the GH, so I've gone back to using the water softener pillow.
I'm just wondering if I should try a little oyster shell in one of the filters, or just find some aquarium-grade calcium carbonate like your article referenced to bring up the kH...

[Diana]

Lets see some numbers. Lets get the whole picture on one page, not in dribbles and bits.

Test and post the following:
Tap water KH, GH, pH, TDS and repeat the pH test on some tap water that has sat out for 24-48 hours.

If you run ANY sort of filter on the tap water, then duplicate these tests on water "before" and "after" the filter.

Test tank for the same.

What is your regular water change schedule, and amount changed. How long has it been since a water change?).

List any additives to the tank: Plant fertilizers, pH adjusters, CO2, fish vitamins and anything else.

List all filter media.

List stuff in the tank:
What sort of sand or gravel?
What sort of rocks?
Driftwood (by any name)?
Plants, and is this a high-tech tank? Walstad's El Natural? Other?

And the final question: What is your goal? What sort of fish are you wanting to keep? (Loaches, we can presume, but other goals are OK, too) Are you looking for a lush planted tank? Are you trying to breed a particular species?

[greenbaron]

OK! Thank-you for the kick in the arse! I need it. I will gather all this information (well, except for TDS - no can do...) but it will take me a day or so - but I'll be grateful for any advice. I've always just kind of 'winged it' on my own wrt my aquarium.
As for what I want, I just have clown loaches in there now, specifically a quantity of 3. They are what's left of a group of 7, and are over 20 years old now. I would probably like to add a few more, or maybe get another discus. I had great success with a red discus in the tank a few years back, but he only lived to be about 5 or so... come to think of it, these loaches have outlived 2 dogs, 1 cat, 1 horse, 2 birds, and several chickens...

[Curtis]

How big are the clowns now?

[greenbaron]

That's a harder measurement to take than the TDS!
I'm guessing between 5 - 6". They won't outgrow their tank... well by that I mean they won't get bigger than their environment allows, of course in a perfect world they'd be in a stream somewhere, or maybe in chefkeith's aquarium, but for me 75gal is as big as I can go in my little cabin.
They started out in a 29gal as sub-inchers, then moved to a 55gal, then I'm thinking it was around 1995 that we got the 75 gallon set-up for them.

[greenbaron]

2 questions I hope not too stupid...

is there a reason to leave my tap water setting 48 hours for the pH test seeing as it's untreated well water?

i'm having a bit of a time figuring out why i can't post pic's here... i see my Options has HTML OFF, but I have set it to always ON in my profile... doesn't seem to allow me to insert a valid url and that is the only reason I can see (that the Options says HTML is OFF, that is).

TIA,
gb

ps, I hope my prior statements regarding the size of the tank do not make people mad here. You have to understand that things have changed quite a bit since I first started in the hobby, some 35 years ago. I have been remiss in keeping up with things it's true, but I'm doing the best I can with the old guys that I've got. After reading all the info here, I probably would not add more clowns, even though they are the only fish I've ever really kept, with some few exceptions but always only as tankmates to the clowns...

[chefkeith]

If you have clowns that have kept you for 20+ years, then you must be doing something right to keep them happy. Congrats. That is a goal we'd all like to achieve.

If the pH is consistently at 6.0 then maybe something else is buffering the water that isn't measured by kH, such as natural phosphates. I don't understand the phosphate (PO4) cycle to well, but I think when combined with acids (H+) they produce a phosphoric acid buffer (H3PO4). Good or bad, I really don't know. I'd probably get a phosphate test kit just to check.

ps- You'd let the water sit for 48 hours to let it degas. It was not know that you were using well water.

[greenbaron]

Looks like the earliest recorded data on my current tank is from about 10 years ago and at that time I was running about:
70 mg/L KH
50 mg/L GH
pH 6.6
nitrate 10ppm

At some point a few years ago, the bottom dropped out on the KH and the pH (I'm talking lowest readings the tests I used would provide), and nitrates were consistently reading 20ppm. I never could figure out why, but it's become clear to me after this latest 'experiment' that it is simply a case of decaying driftwood coupled with too infrequent water changes.

As promised, the current data:
tap (well) water:
90 mg/L KH
100 mg/L GH
pH 7.6
nitrate 0ppm (I had to check)

as stated, water changes in the past have been very infrequent.
In the past week or so I've done 3 water changes of ~ 8 - 12% of the water, suctioning gravel method. I treat the tap water as always with an amazon buffer (that changes the pH to ~ 6.5 - 6.8 and does not change the hardness as measured) and use a water softener pillow in the HOT Magnum filter for ~24 hours afterwards. The current tank conditions:
20 mg/L KH (this is up from <10mg/L)
<20mg/L GH
pH 6.4 (this is up from 6.0, and I'm surprised! could be a little less than 6.4, but let's just say it's closer to 6.4 than to 6.0)
nitrates 20ppm (so far, unchanged)

Tank occupants / equipment are 3 clown loaches and driftwood, small non-sharp gravel, one HOT Magnum filter (250 gph rated) and one Eheim cannister (the one they now call "Classic Plus", 164 gph rated).

Most of the driftwood that's in the tank now (but not all, some is much older) has been in the tank since '01. It is soft driftwood, and was collected under water in AL. The company I got it from provided it precleaned and it was never allowed to dry even in shipment so it sank right off. That company is still on the web, but they don't appear to be shipping anything anymore... I believe what I need to do is continue frequent water changes while acquiring replacement driftwood, this time using mopani hardwood, which I hope will last longer.

note to self, investigate the utility of a TDS meter...
thanks for making me think! g'day