RE: RO or Ion-Exchange Resins??

["Eric Martina" <emartina@uiuc.edu>]

Arthit,
	KH is the measure of the water's ability to buffer the pH. The pH is a
measure of how acidic, neutral, or basic the water is.  The KH has to be low
in order for the pH to be low, if the KH is high and you lower the pH, the
pH will start to rise back to where it was because the buffering capacity of
the water.
	General hardness, GH is not related to KH or pH directly. I have seen water
with low KH and high GH, and visa-versa. When people talk about having soft
water, they are referring to having a low GH.
	So by just lowering the KH and pH of your water you not addressing the soft
water aspect of an Apistos requirement. The only way to lower the GH of your
water  is by getting an RO or DI unit(or something similar, some one earlier
mentioned something that you can just attach to your faucet...) Before you
go out and invest in some sort of unit I would see what the GH is of your
tap water. Your tap water might be soft enough for most Apistos, mine is ;)
	I hope this helped.

Eric Martina


>Thanks all for your promply responses. I stil don't quite get it with the
water chemistry. >Would anyone please kindly explain the relations between
General hardness, KH and pH
>please. That will be very helpful..
>
>If the pH and KH had been lowered, would this be enough to satisfy the
apisto's needs and
>preferences?
>
>Cheers,
>
>Arthit
>Bangkok, Thailand
>--



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