# Adjusting pH in natural way



## rubbersandal (26 Nov 2013)

*Hi  as I am having a 3ft hardscape tank keeping 5 altums for a year, my pH level is always btw 7.5-8. I thought of bringing down to at least 6.5 by using more natural ingredient like peats as I believe those man-made chemical pH down products will screw up my water perimeter now or in future. But the thing is peats dosent solve my problem. Im thinking of getting ada soil in replacement of peats instead as I know substrate like this will bring down level of pH, do you this is worth doing, iis it pratical in doing so? By the way My main substrate is caribsea substrates which will not alter pH and I had removed most rocks.*


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## dw1305 (26 Nov 2013)

Hi all, 





rubbersandal said:


> my pH level is always btw 7.5-8


The problem with pH is that it deals with a ratio, which means that without some measurement of the reserve of carbonate buffering (dKH) it is very difficult to interpret the pH.

We probably need some more details before going any further. Is it tap water? if it is and you are in the UK? you should be able to get water hardness details from your water company. If it RO? you can alter the re-mineralising salts mix. I know it isn't to every-ones taste, but I've used rain-water since the 1970's without any problem.

Peat will soften water, but it has to be "sphagnum peat", the reason it works is that it has both CEC and contains humic substances. Because sphagnum peat only forms in ombrotrophic mires ("rain fed") it has a very low "base percent saturation", and all the initial cation exchange sites are filled with protons (H+ ions), these are then exchanged for multivalent ions like Ca++. The humic compounds will chelate some metals, again softening the water. 

Substrates with both CEC and low base percent saturation (like Akadama and presumably the active substrates) work in the same way, they exchange other cations for H+ ions. This means that they will only soften water for a limited period, once equilibrium is reached ions will be exchanges dependent upon their concentration and valency.

cheers Darrel


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## Ravenswing (27 Nov 2013)

Hi rubbersandal!

Is it totally no-no to collect rainwater? I have collected it for few weeks by now with fantastic results. pH has normally been 8, now 7 (doing just small WCs not to drop TDS/EC too fast), coming down I guess as we change water . GH and KH have down dramatically too. It means job, yes, but its free if you just can get it enough. I have tried peat many times, but results were not so good with such a (big&many) tanks we have. High pH is not an issue anyway, hard water can be but mainly when it comes to breeding. If your altums have been fine for a year, you can suppose the will be fine also in the future. It is wise to stay away from pH down-chemicals, they are just waste of money.

Darrel, do you also collect rainwater or do I remember wrong?


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## GreenNeedle (27 Nov 2013)

Thats 3 of us for rainwater.  I have some corrugated roof material that used to be my old shed roof.  nailed it to 2 pieces of wood , larger piece along one side, smaller piece on bottom side.  Added a 6ft length of guttering to the smaller piece of wood.  It sits behind my shed then when it rains I put it on the table outdoors, a brick under both bits of wood at one end and a a bucket under the other end of the gutter.  Then I just filter that into a 25 litre container through a filter funnel that has wool stuffed into the bottom and carbon sitting on top of it.

Wouldn't be sufficient for high quantities but you can make something bigger.  Mine is about 2ft x 6ft in total and I can get an average of 15 litres a week from it.  Obviously it fills up several containers through the cold end of the year and then through the dry months there is normally enough (just) to get through.

The only reason I do it this way is because I just put a new shed in and you shouldn't use water from the shed roof until its 2 years old or something like that.  I used to use the water straight off the old shed roof which having a larger surface area would fill the massive water butts with ease


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## dw1305 (28 Nov 2013)

Hi all,





Ravenswing said:


> Darrel, do you also collect rainwater or do I remember wrong?


 I do, I've used rain-water all my fish-keeping career. Where I live now the tap water is very good quality (it is from a deep limestone aquifer), but hard (about 18dKH).

This thread has some details <If it's yellow, let it mellow and RO is the devil | UK Aquatic Plant Society>, and these are 3 of my water butts.





cheers Darrel


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## criptic (11 Jul 2014)

SuperColey1 said:


> ... Then I just filter that into a 25 litre container through a filter funnel that has wool stuffed into the bottom and carbon sitting on top of it.



I think I might try this - when you say you filter it through wool and carbon. What sort of product do you mean? A basic filter wool and active Carbon charcoal like you put in an external filter for an aquarium or cooker perhaps?  How much carbon? 

Thanks Lou


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