wood & concrete

[shuhu]

Hi

I have a hypothetical question, concrete ups PH and wood lowers it, right??? so....

I currently have a piece of wood in one of my tanks, and I just finished my styrofoam background, coated with cement (concrete), I was wondering if I add the background to the tank (PH ups), and I add an extra piece of wood (PH lowers), will the PH even out, meaning, the change won't be that extreme???

Or will the PH get high no matter how many pieces of wood I add??? maybe this is stupid, but I'm just trying to solve this without the use of chemicals

Hope someone could help??

 

[simonbrown403]

I would of thought the cement would leach out carbonets that would absorb the acids before they could affect the water.

 

[BigC]

You need to seal that concrete background before you have upteen problems keeping fish. Read a little more about water chemistry.
Regards
BigC

 

[andywg]

The concrete will push the pH up far higher than the bogwood could bring it down for.

Best bet is to put the concrete in a bucket and keep changing the water daily and keep checking the pH until it doesn't affect the water. Then it should be ok. (It works fine in Reef set-ups, which are normally more fragile)

 

[Kieron1]

Hi

I have a hypothetical question, concrete ups PH and wood lowers it, right??? so....

I currently have a piece of wood in one of my tanks, and I just finished my styrofoam background, coated with cement (concrete), I was wondering if I add the background to the tank (PH ups), and I add an extra piece of wood (PH lowers), will the PH even out, meaning, the change won't be that extreme???

Or will the PH get high no matter how many pieces of wood I add??? maybe this is stupid, but I'm just trying to solve this without the use of chemicals

Hope someone could help??

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If you are scared of your PH rising too much try using peat based media in your filter. This should gradually lower it.

Regards

Kieron

 

[FrankSlapperinni]

I have a Styrofoam-rock backround in my 75 gallon cichlid setup. Although I didn't care as much about it raising the pH (dealing with cichlids), I still waited for the cement to cure before adding fish. One way to speed up the curing process would be to add water softener salt to the water, which you can buy in 50 lbs bags (although you'll have a lot left over). But if you do that, be sure that nothing else is in the tank, except maybe your driftwood, the salt can treat that too.
I don't have any problems now with the cement raising or lowering my pH now, so you can rest assured that it will eventualy sort it self out.

 

[shuhu]

thanks, I was going to seal the cement with epoxy resin but its expensive, at least were I found it available.

And I know this works better for chichild setups, but I guess I'll have to try curing it, something I didn't want to do 'cause I've read it takes several weeks

 

[Vivienne]

I don't think you need to seal the cement background ( I certainly didn't with mine) but I wouldn't put any fish anywhere near it until it's cured. I think the rise in Ph is a symptom of stuff leaching out of it while it cures which I'm sure would kill pretty much everything. My tap water Ph is 7 and during the concrete curing period (a couple of weeks) it shot up to 9.5 and above. (off the scale on my test kit.) The change is really dramatic and happens very quickly.

I think it would be very difficult to add a background into an existing tank without rehoming the fish and starting from scratch.

 

[shuhu]

I don't think you need to seal the cement background ( I certainly didn't with mine) but I wouldn't put any fish anywhere near it until it's cured. I think the rise in Ph is a symptom of stuff leaching out of it while it cures which I'm sure would kill pretty much everything. My tap water Ph is 7 and during the concrete curing period (a couple of weeks) it shot up to 9.5 and above. (off the scale on my test kit.) The change is really dramatic and happens very quickly.

I think it would be very difficult to add a background into an existing tank without rehoming the fish and starting from scratch.

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yea, I know that the PH changes really fast (didn't know THAT fast though) and I haven't even put the background in water yet, so I will cure it in a bucket instead of re-homing my fish, it would be too much for them since I'm moving to a new house within the following 2 months and I don't want to stress them out just because of a background ... hopefully it will be cured by the time we finish moving so there will only be one "move" for them

 

[FrankSlapperinni]

Sorry to respond so late, but how do you intend on securing the background in the tank without completely draining it? In my case, the rocks are much more buoyant that water, and come unstuck fairly easily unless allowed to dry for several days. Or do you plan on installing it when you move, so it has time to dry while the fish are out of the tank? The only reason I ask is that one rock came unstuck in my tank recently and I've been debating on how to reattach it without removing all the water and fish (not an option at this point).

 

[Vivienne]

I've had that problem too Frank. I did some separate "rocks" to put at the base of my background. One wasn't secured well enough, came loose and floated to the top. Can't see a way of reattaching it at the moment without draining the tank and letting it dry which is not an option. I guess we could try weighting them on some way - possibly by inserting some of the plant weights at the bottom.

I guess another option might be to silocon it to some sort of plastic "tray" that can be burried in the gravel - sort of similar to the way some plastic plants are put in place. I couldn't see something like that working for a whole background though !

 

[shuhu]

@ FrankSlapperinni

Well I'm going to put the background until I move to the new house, and I really don't like the idea of "siliconing" it to the glass 'cause it doesn't seem practical in case I decide to change it again in the future, so, I had actually thought about what Vivienne said, I was planning to attach it to a plastic tray and since I have some rocks these will help to weight it down, plus the cement makes the styrofoam weight more aswell.