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Peat Filtration
Hi All,
I'm sorry for covering a subject that has been so heavily discussed, but
I'm not real sure what's happening.. I tried browsing through various
articles and messages on peat and nothing really relates to what's going
on with me.
Pretty much what's happening is no matter how much peat I bag up and
place in the AQ300 on my 90g, nothing seems to happen. However, soaking
the peat I have in water yields a pH of roughly 4.0! I've set up a
couple 2.5g tanks and tested various ways of "preparing" the peat and
all yielded pH's of about 4.0. One tank was set up with the peat
totally raw, straight from the bale and filled with warm tap water.
Another was set up with lightly rinsed peat and filled with boiling
water and the other was filled the same only half boiling half cool
water. All 3 yielded approximately the same pH. I can't say exactly as
I don't have a meter. Right now in a 30g rubbermaid tub I have roughly
2 gallons of the same peat, however, the pH has barely budged.
The only theory I can come up with is a ratio problem. In other words,
I don't have nearly enough peat in the 90g to do anything (I'd estimate
there's 1-1.5gallons). I guess the only way to test it is to keep doing
what i'm doing but find the limit where the peat doesn't do much to the
pH of the water then do a simple ratio problem.
Has anyone else experienced anything like this? In everything I've
read, it seems people see overnight results in their tanks. I have no
clue what they did that I didn't or what.
FWIW, I'm using Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss bought from Home Depot.
Rinsing consists of putting in a brine shrimp net and holding under the
tap water and shuffling the net around, then squeezing the water out
twice to get out as much of the fine particles as possible. I do the
procedure till the water starts running pitch black. Thanks for any
possible insights.
Steve
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