Rand Simberg wrote:
On Mon, 30 Jun 2003 05:53:05 -0700, in a place far, far away, JSin
made the phosphor on my monitor glow in
such a way as to indicate that:


Look to the lime in your mortor if you are running at 8.o and rebounding
that hard it is being buffered by the the mortar. What is your Tap water
pH???


It's the same, as best as I can tell from a color test (don't have a
meter--a tad over 8, maybe as high as 8.2.

That is high out of the tap. Looks like you may have some fun with
aclimation. You might request a water report from your water system and
see what it is leaving thier pumping station at for ph.


I would bet it is 1 or 2 points lower and I will guarentee your
supplier is running a lot lower especially in thier feeder tanks where
you have a huge bioload and a lot of organic material.

Check with your supplier for their ph as well. This will give you an
idea of what you will need to do to keep the critters happy as you give
them a new home.


Well, the new pond and the tap are the same, as far as I can tell. My
healthy patio pond (that is replenished regularly from the tap) is
7.6.
I would guess the organics in the older pond are buffering down.. This
is a good thing. 7.6 is well within range for your golds.

But as you say, the fact that it rebounds so quickly from the acid
does indicate a lot of continuing buffering. I'll have to go out and
get a KH test kit, I guess, to really know what's going on.

Total water hardness would be another test to get they are dirt cheap
and will give you a good idea of the total dissolved mineral level. the
Kh test will give you buffering capacity which in this case sounds like
what we are looking at.

I've never tried running vinegar over the mortar. Would that help?

Vinagar will just dissolve the top layer of mortar it is a bit too
aggressive and has no real buffering. What I used in my Fish tanks for
South american Discus to bring a ph of 7.2 down to 5.6 was peat in the
filter. This will slowly acidify the water and give you a higher organic
load. Which will bring your ph down and keep it down. Drawback is that
it will color your waster a bit to the brown side.

Good luck

--
JSin
Lost Generation Custom Tattoo
To reply Kill the idiot