Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I'm slowly treating my water with hydrochloric acid my ph is dropping I have it at 7.6ish right now

I have never done it slowly when there is no fish to worry about. It is a chemical reaction. With fish in the water yes. No fish, no worries for me at least. But I have never even once had to screw with it here. In the states, all the time. Sounds like your water is coming from a lime bed. Great for drinking, poor for fish. If that tap water has no buffers it could swing all over the place forever. I would find another source of water for the fish and truck it in. Or buy bottled water for them. For years we went out once a month and filled 3, 30 liter jugs and changed out 90 liters a month. Did nothing but bubbled the water for a few days prior to adding it. If I had this much of a Ph problem I would go out and buy those new plastic fish that dance around all day and not worry. You could also call in a water treatment company and see what they have to say. What is cheaper and easier in the long run.

It probably doesn't matter if you do it rapidly although it does affect the plants and bacteria.

Hopefully there won't be much in the way of pH bounce since the water's been in the system for awhile. Sometimes water that's fresh out of the tap or bottle takes a while to come to equilibrium after exposure to the air and it's my guess that the rocks had nothing to do with the pH change. I could be wrong but it's worth a shot.

We should know pretty soon

Scotty, I'm talking about changing a jug of waters ph. Not an entire system. with plants I would do it more slowly. With a jug, I would change it to what I need ASAP and then bubble it and wait to see if it is right. At least several hours. If it has no buffers it will change instantly and that IMO is bad and most likely what is going on. It is 8 to begin with and not good for fish or most plants. I still say find better water. He is fighting an up hill battle just to start with. We lugged in well water for years and still would be if it wasn't polluted. Yeah, I have an elevator but the 1/4 mile uphill coming home was all done by wagon and sweat. I would at least try and find some and test it. With and without media. I remember using my tap water as is for 8 years until it changed and the fish died also. Look at all the poison they put in your water for your health. It is all industrial waste from here. Some people here can't believe that the US actually does that to its people. Water is the key and if it is wrong to start with many problems will come up in the future also.

On the rocks, he added them and it went up 0.6 , it should have done nothing. It would be nice to see a report from the OP on all of the tests.

And where is all of that hydrochloric acid going to go. Into the plants and fish or convert forever? Hydrochloric acid is nasty stuff to even handle. I don't want to eat it later. Is there a better AP way?

What do you think about 1 cap of white vinegar per liter per point.

http://reefkeeping.com/issues/2005-03/rhf/ has a section all about vinegar and amounts to use. Reading that I took away that he likes it. Lots of charts to look at also.

Now you've got me a bit confused but I'll see if I can run through some of these. The water not having any buffers doesn't concern me, I'd be more concerned if it had too many or if the rocks were calcium carbonate. This would make it difficult to change the pH. If the water didn't have much in the way of buffers it's pretty simple to add them in the form of carbonates. I'm pretty sure he has some buffering or his pH wouldn't wind up around 8. FYI - I ran my system for around 2 years with the pH between 7.8 and at least 8.2. I like the pH lower but it worked, I mostly had to adjust for nutrient lockout of Iron, lots of fish can handle up to 8.5 (of course they prefer it lower).

Except for using it with the respect it deserves and according to the directions since it is a powerful acid, the HCl doesn't concern me either. Did you know that your body makes this to help you digest foods (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-X1lB_s2gc). Along with this the chloride ion is part of salt and the hydrogen ion is found in water.



I'm not sure what you're getting at but the idea that a certain amount of vinegar (aka acetic acid) will change the pH 1 point isn't really valid but it might make for a decent starting point (we give a similar starting point for using acids and bases for pH adjustment to help people get started but it's only until you figure out how much your system really needs). Everyone's water is different so you can't predict how much acid it will take to change the pH of the water. This is due to the differences in the buffering capacity of the water. There are different buffering systems like carbonate or phosphate. The carbonate buffering system is the one we deal with the most but since different systems have different amounts of these buffers it takes different amounts of acid to neutralize them.

Cheers

Yes Scotty I am familiar with our body making acids to eat our food. I just don't want them in my fish tank. I understand it converts only once and is changed for good. But I just don't want this stuff around. There are other ways to do this that are safe to handle. This stuff will burn the skin and worse if drank by accident.

In the article I attached he gets into how much vinegar to add per liter to bring it down 0.3 It just sounds so more AP then chemicals added for any reason. If the dose is not enough just add a bit more vinegar. A simple calculation should be made for his water and then extrapolated for what ever amount of water needed. Since one can drink vinegar I would feel safe using it around kids and the house. I would still find an alternative water source. There are some nasty things that might have been added to the water to make the PH that high to begin with. I no longer trust any water company as a AP source or drinking source. They are out to make cash and could care less about the damage done down stream.

One item I read was lead in the water rises the PH. Have you ever heard about that one. Even old lead pipes or fittings.

Nope, haven't heard that.

As far as having the acid around, if I had kids getting into all areas and didn't have a way to lock it up safely, I'd probably feel the same as you do.

Edit: The bit about lead probably explains why the city here has a requirement to keep the pH above 7.6. At pHs below 7.0 with low calcium carbonate it's more likely to dissolve into the water from any pipes or lead solder used in them.

I had my ph all the way down to 7 yesterday this morning it's back up at 8.2 so does that mean I have strong buffers?

Seems likely. Adjust it down again.

Cam, if you're in the city of San Diego you have pretty well buffered water - Here's one of your water quality reports (2014) - https://www.sandiego.gov/sites/default/files/legacy/water/pdf/wq14.pdf. Looks like your in the 120 to 140 range for Alkalinity (aka Calcium Carbonate Hardness) which indicates buffering capacity. I haven't got it down to the point where I can tell you if adjusting it is do-able. Just see if you can get it to stabilize at the pH you want.

Scotty thanks for that! I got it back down to 7 I'm gonna check it in the morning and hope I can get it to stabilize at around 7.6. I'll keep you guys posted with my results.

I guess I see buffers a bit differently. IMO they (the buffers) should want to hold the Ph where it is and it should be hard to change it. Like adding food color to water, in one glass you drop in a drop and it turns red. In the next glass you drop in 5 drops and the water color is still clear. The buffers should hold off the ability to change the Ph. It seems to me you can swing it anyway you want in an instant. Good buffered water should be harder to change. If you could find good well water at 7 you should be in happy city. My first well water tank went for about a year with zero changes and the water stayed much clearer. We only added water for evaporation and water changed less then once a month then. That tank did have all small fish in it and I doubt I could do that long of times with my current monsters and hundreds of minnows. But if I could I would go back to this water. The only problem is it had was no air in the water and I had to bubble it for 2/3 days on full.

What can I say Deuem . This probably has something to do with buffers having pH optimums where they function at their best but not so well away from these.

That water is fishy. It smells like they are altering it prior to release. Who gets city water at 8? If they are using all rain water now it could start in the 5s and the water company is playing games to up it to drinkable ph standards. I would call them and find out why?

So Scotty are you saying that the water in the lake or river might be balanced there and when pulled it changes? A lot?

It reminds me of lime cave diving. No pesky fish. Just clear water.

For the last couple weeks my water has been stable at 8.2 I came out this morning and actually got a slight reading of nitrites still below .25 ppm but over 0 so I'm kinda stoked about that! I've been topping up with distilled water only and not messing with my tap water. My ph is still high but it's stable witch I'm happy about I'm hoping the nitrofication process will drop that down a bit.

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