Jan,

Where have you heard this horse crap. Baking Soda when
added to acidic water will raise the pH to a stabilized
position and hold it there, but it certainly will not
lower pH especially if you pH is already at the 8 level.

For Heaven's sake stop adding baking soda. You only
need a KH of between 80-120ppm to keep from pH shifts.
If you pond is in the 8 pH region you can add
Baking Soda to increase your KH to the desired level of
80-120ppm as previous stated, but this can be done with
out making the pH rise, but if you keep increasing the
Baking Soda it will eventually start raising the pH
because you are adding a bunch of -OH ions to the
increasing the basic side of the pH scale.

In any event, stop the addition of BS and check the pH
frequently to see what happens. Not knowing your water
chemistry I would venture to guess that it should start
dropping. The carbonate ions that your are adding are
used by the biobugs in the chemical reactions that
change ammonia to nitrites and nitrites to nitrates,
which is why it is important to keep KH in the range
previously mentioned.

HTH

Tom L.L.
===================================



~ jan JJsPond.us wrote:
Here I go again:

I've often heard Baking Soda will lower a high pH. I'm wondering just how
MUCH BS a pun? is needed? My lily pond is 3 yo 1,000 gallon EPDM with 6
fantail goldfish. I've added enough baking soda recently that the KH read
280/ppm today after adding 4 cups of BS. The pH is still reading over 9.0,
and I added 2 more cups this evening.

At what ppm is the KH detrimental to the goldfish, or is safe as long as
there is more liquid water than solid BS in the pond? At what ppm will the
pH dropped, or is this really an old fisherman's tale?

This pond has concrete block surrounding the top, but it is 3 yo, and I
haven't had this bad a time with pH the previous years, usually a few
treatment with M.acid has gotten it under control. This year I've used a
whole gallon on it (~2 cups/time). Only brings it down for a week or so.

The other odd thing, at least I find odd as I'm always preaching if your
water hyacinths are dying check the pH. Well the water hyacinths are green,
not growing much, but green.... and so is the water, but that I don't find
unusual considering the pH. I'd also like to mention the duckweed is
growing great in the block holes, I guess a high pH doesn't bother them. So
what do you think? ~ jan



(Do you know where your water quality is?)