Lowering Ph

[ender2811Participant]

I’m interested in finding out what chems u guys use to lower your pH???

[keith565Participant]

none. if i have to use a lower than tap pH i use a mixture of tap and rainwater, or if i want it low, just rainwater. i also use almond and oak leaves.

#344371

[MattKeymaster]

The water here is too hard to mess with without passing it through a reverse osmosis system so I don’t alter it any more but when in England I was using a phosphoric acid product normally used in hydroponic plant propagation to lower pH.

[duncKeymaster]

What Matt said – one or two drops per 20L water change was more than enough to bring it down in my 400L tank.

[ender2811Participant]

What’s the product? Although the hydroponic plant propagation scene in Croatia isn’t as hot as it used to be, so I don’t think it makes much of a difference. Is there any household organic acid which isn’t toxic to fish? Like citric, acetic…

I ask because there’s something fishy

#344412

[MattKeymaster]

It’s this one.

What kind of pH test kit are you using?

[EyrieParticipant]

Have you tried leaving the tap water to sit for 24 hours before testing? There can be dissolved CO2 present which will lower the pH, but given time this gasses off and the pH will increase.

[ender2811Participant]

I’m using a sera liquid test kit and litmus strips.

I have tried leaving the water to sit. I tested it extensively before I actually set my tank up. I tested hot water which I left to cool, cold water which I left to warm up, I even had a small bucket filled with rocks I’d collected which I tested for something like 3 weeks. The difference was never bigger than .3 or so. These numbers are all educated guesses on my part since the tests are all colorimetric but I never had a sample hit the 7.5 mark except in the tank itself.

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