Bad For Cycled Aquariums?

[RadaR]

Well, the c02 liquid fertilizer by EasyLife has arrived in the post and since c02 does lower the PH level I've decided I'll daily dose my aquarium with this fertilizer in order to maintain a PH of around 7.0.

Liquid carbon products dont effect the pH like gaseous CO2. You shouldnt notice a difference.
Liquid carbon is Glutaraldehyde.

 

[mark4785]

I'm pretty sure peat takes care of both GH and KH, but can't really find anything to back that up outside of forum posts in google...

I experimented with peat a little, and in a 10 gallon tank I got it from 7.6 to 7.2 using a golfball sized amount of peat in the filter over the course of two days. So in filter it won't radically swing out of control if you're just using tiny amounts at a time. Filtering water through a huge pile of peat outside of the tank did reach the lowest end of my test kit, 6.2. If you filter through it outside the tank you can slowly add the concentrated peat "juice" to the tank a little bit at a time and fine tune the pH that way. But it's a lot more work, especially if it's a big tank.

I was also thinking of rigging up a large coffee machine from the thrift store to do this for me, but my rams don't seem to mind my 7.6 water anyways so I just gave up on that.

Good luck, I hope something works out for you

Thanks for that info, I was wondering how long it takes to influence the PH. I shall experiment with some peat when I get back from holiday when I will have more time on my hands.

 

[OldMan47]

If you want to drop GH without using an RO, use rain water. When I measure rain water that I have collected, it measures about 8 ppm of TDS, total dissolved solids, and my RO produces about 20 ppm of TDS. That means the rain water would be a better way to simply reduce mineral content than my RO. An RO/DI would typically produce water about 1 or 2 ppm of TDS but you don't need water that pure to dilute tap water to a desired concentration. What I do to collect rain is wait until we get a good storm and then allow my gutters to flush for 5 or 10 minutes. After that I collect rain from the gutter in 5 gallon buckets, cover them and store them for when they are needed. RO costs me and the environment a lot more than rain, so I use rain when I can.