• You are viewing the forum as a Guest, please login (you can use your Facebook, Twitter, Google or Microsoft account to login) or register using this link: Log in or Sign Up
  • Most of the remaining team are off on holiday meaning the forum does not have sufficient cover. As such the site will be placed in maintenance mode where it can be viewed but no posts/threads can be made and will remain this way until August 11th, apologies for the inconvience.

Akadama - Used as a water conditioner?

Aeropars

Aeropars

Member
Joined
9 Jul 2007
Messages
818
Location
Leicester
Reading James thread got me thinking. Using small amounts of Akadama, do you think we coudl use it as a KH lowering mechanism? I've got pretty hard water and though itmight be a way to lower the KH a little without needing RO.

Not something I'm planning on trying but i'm curious if something like this could be used to drop the KH of hard water? I'm sure the chemist's on here will have something to say 🙂

Lee
 
It could be but it'd be quite expensive and not very controllable. Akadama itself doesn't actually lower KH but is a result of hydrogen exchange with cations. It's the hydrogen ions (H+) or more commonly known as acid that causes the KH to drop. You could therefore add an acid to the water to lower the KH - it has been done before :? . Main problem with doing this is that you end up with KH and pH values going up and down.

Akadama and other high CEC value substrates like kitty litter will only lower KH whilst they are exchanging cations (Mg++, Ca++, etc). When the substrate is saturated this will no longer happen and KH will no longer drop.

James
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top