On Fri, 03 Sep 2004 11:25:04 -0700, Gabrielle wrote:

===My new pond is a mess, as new ponds tend to be. I'm trying to be very
===patient as the water gets greener before it gets clearer.
===
===The one spot I have tried to meddle in is lowering the pH. After a
===month, with plants (alive but not thriving) & turtles but no fish, my pH
===was high at 8.4, and my total alkalinity was high at about 250. I very
===cautiously used pH Down and now the total alkalinity is about 120, which
===my test kit says is ideal, but my pH is still about 8.4. What can I do
===to lower pH without further lowering total alkalinity? Nitrate & nitrite
===are both in the safe zones and the water has gone from very hard to
===somewhere between hard & soft. The pond is about 1400 gallons with a
===small waterfall and 8' stream emptying into the pond. I'm in the Sonoran
===Desert in southwestern Arizona with temps 100+ most days and I have to
===top off the pond about every other day to cover evaporation. I spent
===last weekend erecting a shade cloth awning over the pond to help with
===sunlight & heat issues.
===
===Gabrielle, who is not a chemist

Alkaline and Ph always seem to go together. We have a hot tub and if
you can get the ph down to the desired point the alk is still in high
ppm for what is specified to be desireable. The only real way in a
hot tub is douse it with whatever you use for sterilizing (cholorine
or bromine) and this also brings down ph...... once we get the alk to
limits needed, alk is usually way to low. If you add sodium bicarb it
raises both alk and ph, however if you adjust the ph with soda ash it
does not affect the ph, just alk content. So I wonder if what works
for a pond to lower one and not the other or raise one and not the
other would also work in a hot tub? It seems no matter what you do its
all a chemical juggling act to get it balanced out..........one thing
I am certainly not crazy over. With a ph of 8.4 I certainly would not
wory about it.
Visit my website: http://www.frugalmachinist.com
Opinions expressed are those of my wife,
I had no input whatsoever.
Remove "nospam" from email addy.