Peat PH and KH

[Diana]

I would remove the water softening pillow from the filter. Your well water is plenty soft enough for the fish. The GH is being removed, and the fish and plants need the minerals that are getting removed.

When water flows through rocks etc to become well water it is collecting other minerals along with the calcium and magnesium that we measure as GH.

At this point it looks like the pH change is due to the decomposing wood. Higher KH might stabilize the pH.

Here is what I would do:
Make sure the plants are thriving, and ignore the pH. The GH is what the fish want when you read that they like soft water, and your well gives you that sort of water. The low level of minerals is just about right. TDS meter would help figure out how much minerals there are, but based on the low GH out of the well I would assume other minerals are also present in low levels.
Watch that the KH does not reach 0 degrees, and add just enough baking soda or other source of carbonates to keep it around 2-3 degrees (25-50 mg/l),

Keep up the water changes so that the minerals that are used by the plants and fish are replenished frequently.

Do you have a 24hour or 48 hour pH reading on the well water?

[greenbaron]

I would remove the water softening pillow from the filter. Your well water is plenty soft enough for the fish. The GH is being removed, and the fish and plants need the minerals that are getting removed.
Here is what I would do:
Make sure the plants are thriving, and ignore the pH. The GH is what the fish want when you read that they like soft water, and your well gives you that sort of water. The low level of minerals is just about right. TDS meter would help figure out how much minerals there are, but based on the low GH out of the well I would assume other minerals are also present in low levels.

Do you have a 24hour or 48 hour pH reading on the well water?

I did not take a 24 or 48 hour pH on the well water. I should point out there are no plants in the tank. As for the GH, I'm confused... the 100 mg/L I measured is right on the borderline between "slightly hard" and "moderately hard", and I can confirm that mineral deposits do require cleaning from some of my bathroom fixtures semi-regularly. The softener pillow is used only after a water change, and then for ~ 24 hours...

[chefkeith]

You use an amazon buffer which lowers the pH, and then use a water softening pillow, which then lowers the kH?

It's predicable that the pH would get as low as 6.0 with this combination.

Also, the parameters of the source water look fine to me. A 90 ppm kH and 100 ppm gH would be ideal. That's really not hard at all.

[greenbaron]

You use an amazon buffer which lowers the pH, and then use a water softening pillow, which then lowers the kH?

It's predicable that the pH would get as low as 6.0 with this combination.

Also, the parameters of the source water look fine to me. A 90 ppm kH and 100 ppm gH would be ideal. That's really not hard at all.

The amazon buffer lowers the ph and supposedly buffers the solution.
The water softener pillow lowers the GH. Neither product has any affect on the KH, at least as measured. I suppose if the amazon buffer says it buffers the solution, it must affect the KH. But since my source KH is ideal, it's moot. My source GH is by no definition I have seen considered soft... the short time when I have not used the pillow, I got crust from evaporating condensation on the hood. The test itself calls those readings hard, as I mentioned...

[chefkeith]

0 - 4 dH, 0 - 70 ppm : very soft
4 - 8 dH, 70 - 140 ppm : soft
8 - 12 dH, 140 - 210 ppm : medium hard
12 - 18 dH, 210 - 320 ppm : fairly hard
18 - 30 dH, 320 - 530 ppm : hard
higher : liquid rock (Lake Malawi and Los Angeles, CA)

http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/CO2/khgh.html

[chefkeith]

BTW, having 0 nitrates is impossible in a cycled tank. How old is the test kit your using?

If your not doing atleast 25% weekly water changes, then more than likely the kH is getting exhausted from the nitrogen cycle.

What is the water changes routine for this aquarium?

[greenbaron]

I guess the standards vary
My Nutrafin test kit has the following:

GH
0 - 60 mg/L CaCo3 = soft water
61 - 100 = slightlly hard
101 - 200 = moderately hard
> 200 = very hard

(it has a separate characterization of and test for the KH, naturally)
KH
<20 mg/L = adjust with appropriate buffer, if needed.
20 - 80 = normally associated with low ph and good for fish that prefer acidic conditions
> 80 = excellent buffer capacity, and normally associated with high pH

When I got my first loaches, the lady wouldn't let me out of the store without selling me also braz walker's "sharks and loaches", which had just been published (1974). In that book, a general hardness of 2dH or less is recommended for clowns. I realize the context of that is for breeding purposes, but the idea in breeding is to mimic native conditions as closely as possible. Rain forest - fed streams don't have much in the way of hard water minerals. So I guess what I'm saying is it's pretty ingrained in this old head of mine that the general hardness should be 2dH or less, and that's what I've always gone for, and really, keeping the GH at those levels couldn't be much easier with my handy-dandy ion-exchange resin pillow. In addition to removing hard water minerals it also acts as a metal sponge, which is good, and anyway, it's not the cause of my bottoming out kH.

To your other question, the reading of 0 nitrates was under the tap / source water category... I know there shouldn't have been any there, but like I said, I just "had to check" since these recent water changes haven't had any impact so far on my 20ppm readings from the tank. I was running pretty consistently at 5 - 10 ppm years ago, and I will get back to that before I'm done.

You hit the nail on the head with your last question though. There hasn't been any routine on the water changes for the past few years, and THAT is the source of my troubles! But I have seen the moon light and now things are sure looking up! Thanks!!

[greenbaron]

So, after several water changes in the past few weeks, it seems like things have stabilized. At least I thought so, until I got my new TDS-4 !!!
A day after the last two changes, my readings:

pH 6.4
GH 10 mg/L
KH 30 mg/L
nitrates 20 ppm
temp 81.4

Got my new meter and took a measurement last evening (after having fed a cucumber slice earlier in the day, if that makes any difference):
471
Waited a little while and tried again:
508

This morning, tested the tap/source water, which is cooler than 81 deg but this meter says it has temperature compensation?:
107
Tried again in the tank:
528
Again:
560
Cleaned the probes with alcohol on a swab, dried with tissue, tried again:
542

Ok, so I need to keep doing water changes? With my other readings so good, why is my TDS so high? Why does it vary so widely with measurements taken just moments apart?

[chefkeith]

Salt? Does the Water Softning Pillow use salt to activate it.

[greenbaron]

Well, the manufacturer says no. I mean, yes to answer the question does it use salt, but no to the other:

"The Water Softener Pillow contains a special ion-exchange resin that selectively removes hard water minerals, such as calcium and magnesium, and heavy metals, such as copper and iron, from freshwater aquariums. In the ion-exchange process, sodium ions in the resins are exchanged for heavy metals, calcium and magnesium that cause hard water. When the ion-exchange process is complete, the pouch is recharged by placing the pillow in a salt solution. Recharging the pillow reverses the ion-exchange process and makes the pouch ready for re-use. Because this process exchanges only sodium, it does not add salt to the aquarium, only harmless sodium ions."

[chefkeith]

When I take a measurement I usually wiggle the meter's probes in the water for about 15 seconds. Any bit of air trapped near the probes can throw the reading off a little.

If salts gets on the probes it will need to be rinsed off with clean water or it will throw off the following reading.

Where are you from? You never mentioned it in your profile. If you live near the ocean, you could have natural salts in your tap water.

[chefkeith]

That's it. The pillow is making the TDS higher by adding sodium to the water.

Now you know.

[greenbaron]

I don't know whether that should be a concern or not... practical experience is telling me "no", considering the years and years I've been softening my aquarium water this way. But I will be looking into this further... again, thanks for pointing out the obvious

[greenbaron]

I need a chemist.

Wait, this is an "exchange" process - not an additive one...
Does it make sense that the dissolved calcium magnesium copper and iron are contributing any less to the TDS than the sodium ions that are taking their place?

[chefkeith]

You should ask RTR over at Aquafacts.net about that. He has quite a background in chemistry.

Here's something by Robert T. Ricketts

Water Softener Pillows

These are frequently sold and used to "soften" the water, supposedly to make it more suitable for blackwater fish such as many Tetras and Amazonian Cichlids, etc. What is not explained is that these “pillows” (bags of ion exchange resins, again brine rechargeable), are trading two sodium ions (Na+) for each calcium or magnesium ion (both ++), as the net charge in such an exchange must match. Thus the TDS of the water is ordinarily increased by the exchange. True, blackwater is poor in Ca++ and Mg++, but it is equally poor in Na+ and other minerals as well. The desired water would be low TDS, which should also be relatively “soft”. This sort of resin is best referred to as a “salt exchange” resin. They are not desirable for use for aquarium water. Household water softeners are commonly of this type, although “acid-base exchange” resins are available for home use at higher cost. If the home water softener is rechargeable by salt, it is obviously a salt exchange type. Sodium ions do not interfere with lather. For tank use, a blend of reverse osmosis water and your tap water would be far better for fish keeping.

http://aquafacts.net/components/com_mam ... Filtration