Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Just worked out that our water has a naturally high PH. Anyone else got the same problem and if so what did you do about it. Natural remedies preferred.

Some homemade vinegar works for me. Best to bring it down slowly as to not shock the fish.

Some homemade vinegar works for me. Best to bring it down slowly as to not shock the fish.

How high PH is your source water. Remember to aerate the sample before taking the reading.

Good morning and thanks for the suggestions. Charlie when you say "aerate the sample" do you mean shak it well?

Sorry that should read SHAKE it.

how much water volume you got?

food grade acid citric (ebay) slighly more pure has a better buffering capacity, I think even seasol or maxicrop tend to be sligly acidic, so a regular imput of any in small quantity should bring it down.

Or use Hydrochloric acid (muriatic acid)... likely to be cheaper... and more effective.. (per amount required)...

Citric acid is anti-bacterial... which could impact on your nitrifying bacterial colony...

It can be used to treat chloramines though...

Rupe I think he asked for a natural metod and this is my conclusion:

Hydrochloric acid is a strong inorganic acid, normally a colourless solution of 15% hydrogen chloride (HCl) in water. It is a highly corrosive, strong mineral acid with many industrial uses.
High chloride levels (above 100 mg/l) are a concern only if the water is also used to irrigate sensitive land-based crops.

Early studies on organic acids in fish diets included citric acid in salmonids (Fauconneau 1988) covering cold-water as well as tropical species, indicate that a broad range of organic acids, their salts or mixtures of those can improve growth, feed utilization and disease resistance in fish.
Several studies have been conducted with different species including carnivores like rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss, Atlantic salmon Salmo salar and artic charr Salvelinus alpinus, herbivorous filter feeders (tilapia), omnivorous fish (carp, catfish) and shrimp.

If you wan to know more about organic acidification in aquaculture read this:

http://www.wfish.de/fulltext/efeedlink- ... ulture.pdf

Beware of a some doctors on this forum who will preach for chemotherapy, because it doesn't kill ....it doesn't mean it's good for you.

Stick to natural remedy mate!

Providing the cause isn't your source water or media then natural method would be time.

As the nitrification process occurs your pH will come down naturally.

If you are talking a one shot lower the pH so you can get started sort of thing, the Muratic acid (hydrochloric acid) is likely to be fairly easy/effective.

If your source water is so freaking hard (read liquid limestone) that you would be having to treat the water regularly, unfortunately there really isn't a good/easy solution. Using acid to reduce the hardness of the water is going to leave you with lots of calcium and whatever else is in the acid in the water and that just isn't a good long term solution to be doing regularly.

For instance, heavy use of hydrochloric acid with water that is high in calcium carbonate is going to leave you with water that is heavy in calcium chloride instead and unless you can get rid of some of that calcium chloride it is not a good long term regular solution.

If your source water is that hard you probably want to do your best to collect some rain water and if you can't collect enough rain water to make a difference, you may have little choice but some form of multi stage water treatment filtration system that includes Reverse Osmosis and De-Ionization. Such systems waste quite a lot of water and have ongoing filter replacement costs. Unfortunately, you don't really get to "add" something to the water in order to remove something from the water. Though I suppose it could be possible to bubble CO2 into the water to deal with the carbonates and I suppose once you stop bubbling the CO2 in it will escape and the calcium will probably be largely precipitated out. This isn't really a cheap/easy method either though. Any method probably requires a separate water adjustment tank before you use it in the system since I highly discourage anyone from dumping ANY type of acid into a system with fish, plants or bio-filter already established.

Sorry not to have better news for you.

Thank you everybody for your suggestions, they are all under consideration.