About Ph

[John59]

I am setting up a new tank I use R/o water mixed with tap water Gh=6, Kh=3 my problem is that i can not lower Ph it is 7,8 i use Co2 with Ph controller i can go down to 7,4 impossible to go lower too much and dangerous Co2 level
can you suggest what else may influence Ph the substrate seems ok unless the fertilizer under the substrate is the cause ??
No fish in the aquarium just a few plants at the moment just trying to get the Ph right and then think about getting fish my target Ph=6.5

 

[Spank]

I am setting up a new tank I use R/o water mixed with tap water Gh=6, Kh=3 my problem is that i can not lower Ph it is 7,8 i use Co2 with Ph controller i can go down to 7,4 impossible to go lower too much and dangerous Co2 level
can you suggest what else may influence Ph the substrate seems ok unless the fertilizer under the substrate is the cause ??
No fish in the aquarium just a few plants at the moment just trying to get the Ph right and then think about getting fish my target Ph=6.5

I say wack up the CO2!!! My tank is also at similar levels Gh and Kh, in order to achieve a desired 30ppm CO2 (which is what seemes to be recommeneded on here for planted tanks) I set my controller to 6.45..... you should be fine with those levels of CO2

 

[rdd1952]

What fish do you want to keep? Unless you are looking to keep fish that really need acidic water, there isn't any reason to mess with it. Adjusting pH and keeping it stable can be a difficult task. What is the pH from your tap? If it's lower than the 7.8 in the tank, then something in the tank is causing it to rise. Your GH & KH definitely aren't high so it shouldn't be hard to lower it with CO2 unless there is something in the tank that is buffering the water and pushing the GH & KH up. What type fertlizers are you using under the substrate and what type substrate do you have?

Driftwood will help lower pH as will running peat in your filters.

 

[John59]

Thank you both
The fertilizer i do not really know it is something like mud i put it under,
That it the strange my tap water is Ph=7.4 Gh=22 and Kh=12 when i mix it with R/o i get the reading i gave above kh and Gh go down and Ph up
It is driving me crazy

Actually Kh goes almost 0 one drop and i raze it to 3 with soda

Dreaming of a pair of Discus (found a breading pair)and the shop is keeping it for me till i get my Ph sorted

 

[Spank]

Thank you both
The fertilizer i do not really know it is something like mud i put it under,
That it the strange my tap water is Ph=7.4 Gh=22 and Kh=12 when i mix it with R/o i get the reading i gave above kh and Gh go down and Ph up
It is driving me crazy

Actually Kh goes almost 0 one drop and i raze it to 3 with soda

Dreaming of a pair of Discus (found a breading pair)and the shop is keeping it for me till i get my Ph sorted

Where do you live?
I live in London so the water here is very very hard so I mix 3 parts RO to 1 Part normal tapwater, this gives me a Gh 3degrees and Kh of 3 Degrees as well, what proportion tap water to RO water you mixing?

 

[angelmouse]

Hi i also am blessed with thames ridiculously hard water I use 80-85% r/o and 20-15% tap for my discus this leaves my ph at 7.2-7.4 and kh3, gh5 when i airate the water overnight it raises to 7.8 ph. But once its in my tank with diy co2 it goes down to 6.7, i would not bother with the bicarb (this could be the problem) just add more tap to get the desired kh/gh and raise the co2 but make sure there is plenty of surface movement. Most discus can cope with ph 7.2 as long as its stable and they are not wild Discus. I added other tankmates before the discus as once you have fish and waste the mature filters seemed to help, oh and plenty of bogwood does the trick too
Angel

 

[Lurks]

I've got a tip on this, something I discovered by fluke. The water out of a filter jug, brita type things, you know the ones. It comes out as basically completely soft but PH 5.0. Remarkable. Anyway, I found with a mixture of RO water, filter water and tap water I could basically achieve anything I wanted PH and hardness wise.

Seems to be working a treat too, so I can only assume nothing odd got introduced in the process.

 

[John59]

I added other tankmates before the discus as once you have fish and waste the mature filters seemed to help, oh and plenty of bogwood does the trick too

I think thats the trick thank you so much No3 = 0 no fish inside no food no waist everything ammonia etc = 0

Thanks again

Thanks also for the brita trick you solved me an other problem i use it on a small live bearer tank i have and i was wondering why the Ph was so low xa xa

By the way i live in Greece in a small village north of Athens

 

[rdd1952]

That it the strange my tap water is Ph=7.4 Gh=22 and Kh=12 when i mix it with R/o i get the reading i gave above kh and Gh go down and Ph up
It is driving me crazy

Actually Kh goes almost 0 one drop and i raze it to 3 with soda

Dreaming of a pair of Discus (found a breading pair)and the shop is keeping it for me till i get my Ph sorted

RO water should definitely lower your pH. If the pH is rising after you add the water to the tank, then you have something in there that is causing it to go up. It could be the fertilizer stuffyou are talking about or it could be some type rock or decoration.

The reason it seems to go up only after you mix it with the RO water is that your tap water is hard and has good buffering capacity. The pH will remain very stable and not be affected by things in your tank that are trying to raise it. Once you add the RO water and lower the GH & KH, you have lost all your buffering capacity thus the items that are trying to move the pH are now able to do it without any problem. The key to lowering your pH is finding out what is actually raising it and removing it.