How to test peat H2O for GH & KH

[Mike]

Thanks for all of the posts. I built a peat filter per your website.

How do you test your peat water for KH and GH. My test kits (cheap ones) do
not show a color change because of the tea water. I do believe that the pH
dropped below 6 from a starting 8.3. Also, do you see any bounce back in
your pH over time due to the KH being at 3?


"Marksfish" > wrote in message
news:KWJaa.11567$Lq.923778@stones...
> > Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think I read somewhere that organic
> materials
> > like wood or peat lower the pH of the water by leaching mild acids into
> the
> > water. This will lower the pH , but it doesn't change the gh / kh . If
> these
> > materials don't absorb minerals , they would actually INCREASE the total
> > dissolved solids ( TDS ) .
> >
> > Again , I may be wrong . If so , please explain why ....
>
> Indeed, peat does work by leaching tannins into the water, thus acidifying
> the water and also depleting the KH content of the water, making it
softer.
> Dependent on the type of peat used (I use Irish moss peat), the pH is
> dropped from a pH of over 8 to 5.5 and the KH drops from 13 to a
respectable
> 3. The colouring, although not to everyone's liking induces certain fish
to
> spawn and also brings out a more intense colouration in the fish. I have
> also found the tannins to be beneficial in the control of algae.
>
> Regards
>
> Mark
> www.marksfish.f9.co.uk
>
>

[Marksfish]

> How do you test your peat water for KH and GH. My test kits (cheap ones)
do
> not show a color change because of the tea water. I do believe that the
pH
> dropped below 6 from a starting 8.3. Also, do you see any bounce back in
> your pH over time due to the KH being at 3?
>
I use Tetra kits. The water turns blue when the drops are added, changing to
yellow with the drops which are put in. Depending on how many drops it takes
to make the colour change, determines the hardness. If your water is that
tainted you can't see the colour difference, I would maybe suggest leaving a
water sample for a few hours to see if any tannins settle out of the water,
it is no good filtering through carbon because you will get a false result.
I don't have this problem as my water is a very light brown. I have
currently bought the pH of my water down to 5.5 to induce my discus to
spawn. I change 5 gallons per day at a ratio of 4 gallons peat water to 1
gallons tap water. The water conditions seem to stay very stable, although I
wouldn't want to go away for a week and not be able to monitor it.

Regards

Mark

[PérRµ§h]

On Tue, 11 Mar 2003 16:09:15 -0000, in rec.aquaria.freshwater.plants
"Marksfish" > verruimde onze geest met:


>I use Tetra kits.

peat will mess up (give a higher) KH because it brings weak acids into
the water which interfere which the acid titration of the commercial
KH kits.

For the moment no commercial kKH kit can give you the exact KH when
peat is used.

also citric acid (used to lower the pH) interferes with the
measurement.

I'm close to develloping a test which give you both the commercial KH
(which is in fact the acid absorbtion capacity) and the real KH. But
I need some chemicals to begin testing.

PérRµ§h

--

A: Because it messes up the order in which people normally read text.
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A: Top-posting.
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[Iain Miller]

I have
> currently bought the pH of my water down to 5.5 to induce my discus to
> spawn. I change 5 gallons per day at a ratio of 4 gallons peat water to 1
> gallons tap water. The water conditions seem to stay very stable, although
I
> wouldn't want to go away for a week and not be able to monitor it.
>

My Discuss were quite merrily spawning (that is before the latest calamities
I wrote you about) at 6.8....

If you have a settled Ph of 5.5 you must have an almost non existant Kh
level - very close to a crash I would have thought - either that or you are
adding CO2 (or still have CO2 in the water from the peat filtering). I'd be
interested to know what you'd get if you take a bucket of your Peat filtered
water and run an airstone in it for an hour....

good luck with the spawing

I.

[Marksfish]

> If you have a settled Ph of 5.5 you must have an almost non existant Kh
> level - very close to a crash I would have thought - either that or you
are
> adding CO2 (or still have CO2 in the water from the peat filtering). I'd
be
> interested to know what you'd get if you take a bucket of your Peat
filtered
> water and run an airstone in it for an hour....
>
I am still awaiting my new KH test kit (difficult to get hold of around here
for some reason). All of my tanks are currently filtered by an air driven
sponge filter of some sort, so there is plenty of aeration. What I will do
is to record a sample of water for pH and hardness before adding to the tank
and I will then record the same when I do a water change 24 hours later and
we can do a comparison.

Mark

[Iain Miller]

"Marksfish" > wrote in message
news:L%rba.12273$Lq.978511@stones...
> > If you have a settled Ph of 5.5 you must have an almost non existant Kh
> > level - very close to a crash I would have thought - either that or you
> are
> > adding CO2 (or still have CO2 in the water from the peat filtering). I'd
> be
> > interested to know what you'd get if you take a bucket of your Peat
> filtered
> > water and run an airstone in it for an hour....
> >
> I am still awaiting my new KH test kit (difficult to get hold of around
here
> for some reason). All of my tanks are currently filtered by an air driven
> sponge filter of some sort, so there is plenty of aeration. What I will do
> is to record a sample of water for pH and hardness before adding to the
tank
> and I will then record the same when I do a water change 24 hours later
and
> we can do a comparison.
>

I'll be interested to see the results. All the test kits I seem to be using
these days are the Hagen ones which are fairly easy to get hold of & seem to
be quite reliable.

rgds

I.

[Mike]

I will run some pH and hardness tests on my filtered peat and post the
results later this weekend. I am interested in seeing if there will be a
bounceback in pH due to the high KH of the initial tap water.

"Marksfish" > wrote in message
news:L%rba.12273$Lq.978511@stones...
> > If you have a settled Ph of 5.5 you must have an almost non existant Kh
> > level - very close to a crash I would have thought - either that or you
> are
> > adding CO2 (or still have CO2 in the water from the peat filtering). I'd
> be
> > interested to know what you'd get if you take a bucket of your Peat
> filtered
> > water and run an airstone in it for an hour....
> >
> I am still awaiting my new KH test kit (difficult to get hold of around
here
> for some reason). All of my tanks are currently filtered by an air driven
> sponge filter of some sort, so there is plenty of aeration. What I will do
> is to record a sample of water for pH and hardness before adding to the
tank
> and I will then record the same when I do a water change 24 hours later
and
> we can do a comparison.
>
> Mark
>
>

[Iain Miller]

"Mike" > wrote in message
.com...
> I will run some pH and hardness tests on my filtered peat and post the
> results later this weekend. I am interested in seeing if there will be a
> bounceback in pH due to the high KH of the initial tap water.

There shouldn't be on the Kh (or at least I've never seen it) but you'd
expect a change in the Ph from directly after the water has been through the
peat filter on the basis of the CO2 coming back out.

I never even measure the Ph now when I do my peat filtering - just the Kh -
set that, get rid of the excess CO2 & you know in advance what the Ph will
be....

rgds

I.