How Effective is Peat on Houston Tapwater?

[nacra99]

I'm attempting to do an Amazon blackwater biotope, and i wonder if anyone has any experience with how low of a pH i can get with peat alone. I've used peat before, but only to reduce pH by at most 0.5.

Is it going to be too ambitious to try to bring 7.8 all the way to 6.0 with peat alone?

I'm planning on modding an old phosphate reactor and stuffing it full of peat and slow filtering it to death.

I have an RO unit, i'll use it as a last resort because it's connected to my kitchen sink and to get it to my tank in the garage, i'll have to lug 110 gals of it down 22 floors in 5 gal home depot buckets (not the most ideal situation).

Tanks!
(So to speak......)

[nacra99]

Oh.. and does anyone have any plans for a peat bomb.... do people even use those anymore?

[nacra99]

hmmm... i guess i really am old and out dated..
Either that or nobody would be stupid enough to attempt such a stunt.
I guess i'll just have to do it and see how it goes...

peat bomb... sheesh.. what was i thinking.

[BEdward]

I don't know what a peat bomb is.. but I can say that ADA Aquasoil Amazonia knocks my ph down to the low 6's.

[PhishPhreek]

Kent makes a pH 6.0 buffer that I use on my R/O water for my species Bettas.

[nacra99]

I'm trying to get the water acidic and soft to try to induce my altums to spawn. I figure the blackwater should be pretty close to what they get in orinoco.

[Zulaab]

You would have to do this every slowly.. Most fish can handle / tolerate going up quicker than they can deal with going down. I would say you want to do take about a month to lower the pH by about .2 on every water change, doing a change every couple of days.

[nacra99]

Great tip. Thanks!

[nacra99]

oh.. btw.. if anyone is curious... i found plans for a peat bomb:

http://forum.discusnews.com/album_showpage.php?pic_id=1620

[Bogdan]

You can also lower pH by using CO2 dyfuzor.

[nacra99]

Yeah.. i thought of using CO2 also, but with a KH of 4, trying to bring the pH down to 6 from 7.8 will probably increase the CO2 concentration in the water too much.. no?

[Bogdan]

How come you have such low KH, it doesn't look like Houston water. I was able to lower the pH from 7.8 to 6.7 by just applying the CO2. The KH stay about 12 or so.

[eklikewhoa]

With the KH being that low I wouldn't use the co2 for the sole purpose of lowering pH.

ADA Aquasoil does wonders and with params as low as you have it already then it should knock it out in no time.

[nacra99]

Hmm... i dunno... it took about 4 drops from my API KH test kit to turn the water from blue to yellow... maybe i just have a bad kit.

I currently use CO2 to knock the pH down to 6.5 or so, but i'm eventually trying to get it down to 5.5 if possible.

It's gonna be a bare bottom 75 gal with only a large piece of driftwood and hooked up to a peat bomb.

Like mike from FR2 said... "if you can breed these altums, they should let you into heaven....."

[Bogdan]

I think they also like very soft water which make it even more tricky, as soft water become a very weak buffer and ultimately the pH is prone to change very quickly. Be careful and good luck.