sirdarksol

I've been doing some research on altering pH, as my pH is pretty high, and have discovered some interesting information on this task.
I have often heard people say that they use driftwood to lower their pH, and always wondered about this, because I've got driftwood in three of my tanks, and it hasn't affected my pH at all.
I found out that hard water will negate the tannins' effect on the pH, meaning that hard water also negates the pH lowering effect of peat.
So it seems that lowering pH also requires using RO or distilled water.
I think I'll be doing some tests on this, as I'm going to have an empty 10g tank to play with in a little bit.

susitna-flower

I love that this forum is full of enquiring minds.

Did you know that in the garden, soil temperature affects the ability of enzymes in the soil to make phosphates available to the plants. Thus purple leaves. I have often seen purple leaves on cauliflower, cabbage, and broccoli plants set out too early, when the soil is cold. Then if you apply fertilizer with readily available phosphate,, it corrects itself. SO. What does that have to do with anything.....NOT Just that I really enjoy when folks here share their willingness to investigate issues like this...

I have used dirftwood, and peat, and will still do this instead of chemical ph products, and it may all be in my head, but really at this point I don't have any fish that need lower ph, so I'll await your results.

Jim

I had the same problem, but I bought a couple water softening pillows, ran them a couple days, and my water is now all nice and soft. I also have a stocking full of peat in my canister filter, and it's working excellent.