Soft alkaline water?

[Le duke]

My water here in CO, USA fits this description. The water comes from a reservoir at 2800m down to our house at 2000m. Varies a bit seasonally in terms of pH and hardness.

Based on my measurements throughout the year and/or local water report:

pH: 7.2-7.4
dKH: 1-1.6
dGH: 3
TDS: 55-65

 

[MichaelJ]

if your dKH is down in the ~1 degree range filtration over a bit of peat moss or adding some botanicals will lower your pH over a relatively short amount of time. Adding chemicals (strong acids) to lower the pH is usually a bad idea. My dKH is 0.5 or so, and I’m adding botanicals (in addition to keeping driftwood) and keep a fairly stable pH of 6.2-6.3.

Cheers,
Michael

 

[dw1305]

Hi all,

This is a bit strange because if by 'alkalinity' you mean the various forms of dissolved inorganic carbon (e.g bicarbonate)

Apologies, it is back to imprecise terminology <"Some handy facts about water">, I mean the reserve of buffering derived from CaCO3 and, in this case, you don't have any.

cheers Darrel

 

[castle]

Your (much) easier way is to start with RO water and add in the bits you want.

😬 780l total volume says no to RO

@MichaelJ
I have spawned and raised neons in my tap water, which I am using a lot of botanicals. I’ll get a ph probe and check it. Botanicals require a lot of husbandry tho.



I’ve never seen ph as a problem, in fact , I’m not sure I still do but that’s because for my whole fish keeping life it’s been a stable mid point. I guess I just need to keep an eye on it.