Re: Ph adjustment Help

[IDMiamiBob@aol.com]

In a message dated 4/19/99 9:28:05 PM EST, RMG2001@USA.Net writes:

> I need your help how to adjust the PH from my local tap water.
>  My local PH's tap water is 8.8 and I need to adjust to 6.5
>  
>  I ran the tap water directly into a bucket (10 liter bucket)
>  and added a muriatic acid into the bucket until the PH
>  reached to 6.5 and I also ran an air stone overnight.
>  
>  After 6 hours my PH's water increased to 7.4 and the next
>  morning the PH bounced back to 8.8
>  
>  I tried it many times, and I still find the same result.
>  
>  I wonder what's wrong with it or is there any steps that I missed?
>  Is there anybody in this list can help me.

I agree with Dave G.  RO, DI, or total distilled may be your only hope.  The 
problem is your hardness.  Well, actually not your hardness, the hardness of 
the water coming out of your tap and into your fishes' living room.  If you 
investigate hardness test kits, you will discover there are basically two 
kinds, both of which go by a couple different names, just to make it more 
confusing.  Basically, boiling this thing down as totally as possible, you 
have stuff called buffers, measured as either alkalinity, carbonate hardness, 
or KH, which interact with the H+ ions that make water acidic.  It 
neutralizes it and forces pH back up.  If you used gangs of muriatic acid, it 
would eventually be used up and your pH would stay down.    But there would 
still be other things in your water your Apistos or other Riverine cichlids 
would not like.

So what to do?  Option one is to switch to African Rift Lake cichlids 
<choke,gag,hack>
Option two is to process your water.  Reverse osmosis is pretty much the most 
popular way to do that.

Bob Dixon


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