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Retirement and forum shutdown (17 Jan 2022)

Hi,

John Howell who has managed the forum for years is getting on and wishes to retire from the role of managing it.
Over the years, he has managed the forum through good days and bad days and he has always been fair.
He has managed to bring his passion for fish keeping to the forum and keep it going for so long.

I wish to thank John for his hard work in keeping the forum going.

With John wishing to "retire" from the role of managing the forum and the forum receiving very little traffic, I think we must agree that forum has come to a natural conclusion and it's time to put it to rest.

I am proposing that the forum be made read-only from March 2022 onwards and that no new users or content be created. The website is still registered for several more years, so the content will still be accessible but no new topics or replies will be allowed.

If there is interest from the ITFS or other fish keeping clubs, we may redirect traffic to them or to a Facebook group but will not actively manage it.

I'd like to thank everyone over the years who helped with forum, posted a reply, started a new topic, ask a question and helped a newbie in fish keeping. And thank you to the sponsors who helped us along the away. Hopefully it made the hobby stronger.

I'd especially like to thank John Howell and Valerie Rousseau for all of their contributions, without them the forum would have never been has successful.

Thank you
Darragh Sherwin

Altering ph

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12 Sep 2012 15:54 #1 by john gannon (John Gannon)
Hello all
I have a 40l tank with some Cory notatus in it .the ph at the moment is 7.4 ,the water that's feeds the fish house is coming out at 7.5 .im looking to alter the ph to around 6 over the next few days .a neighbour of mine has a rainwater butt and the ph in that is 7.6 .anybody got any ideas how im going to lower ph safely
Thanks
John

IRISH TROPICAL FISH SOCIETY CLUB MEMBER

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12 Sep 2012 16:27 - 12 Sep 2012 16:38 #2 by BillG (Bill Gray)
Replied by BillG (Bill Gray) on topic Altering ph
Hi John,

there are a couple of safe options you can try to achieve the results you are looking for and both are pretty safe.

1 - Alder cones will effectively lower the ph and are available from a lot of the sponsors. If you run a search you will find several threads with good advice on using them and how many to add etc. Kev (Stretnik) has given excellent details on some of these threads.

2 - Akadama bonsai soil used as a substrate. This is an acidic bonsai soul which has all the organic content fired off and is perfectly safe to use in the tank, it is an excellent substrate for a planted tank too :) The only place in the country which I know of that supplies it is Johnstown garden center. You will find them on google no problem. If they have it in stock, they will post anywhere in the country for €5.00.
Again, searching the forum will turn up a few good threads on this.

Cheers,

Bill.
Last edit: 12 Sep 2012 16:38 by BillG (Bill Gray).

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12 Sep 2012 17:09 #3 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
You'd need to know the alkalinity of your water, but it may be quite low and that the pH you get of 7.4 is due to carbon dioxide buffering (but the buffering may be quite weak around that pH region as carbon dioxide 'prefers' to buffer at near pH 6.4 or pH 10.3).

Dropping the pH that much is increasing the free concentration of acid by 25 times the original, so that needs care.

If your water has low alkalinity and the pH of 7.4 is due to carbon dioxide buffering, then partially sealing the top of the tank and increasing the carbon dioxide pressure (or any general air pressure) by a little may force your pH to have good buffering at around pH 6.4. If your water were pure water then that would get a pH of around 5.7 with no added pressure and even more acidic with additional pressure above the water.

Diluting with a 50% RO water mix may not affect the pH much if the pH of 7.4 is produced by a stronger alkali/acid (it would only drop it to 7.1).
But if the present buffer is a weak alkali/acid then the 50/50 mix may simply remove all effective buffering and the pH could drop rapidly to pH 5.7 or lower.

Peat, alder cones etc would be a good place to start (and they add that little extra something and much more safely and gently than many other methods of dropping the pH).

Unless you know what is causing the pH to be 7.4, I would not try to recommend any strong chemical additives.

ian

Irish Tropical Fish Society (ITFS) Member.

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12 Sep 2012 17:17 #4 by anglecichlid (ciaran hogan)
I have a sack of Adler cones there your welcome to a handful or to if you want

Anyone with a aquarium can keep fish,
But it takes real skill to be a fish keeper,


And it's spongeBob,
SpongeBob lives in a pineapple under the sea
BLANCHARDSTOWN

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12 Sep 2012 19:42 #5 by john gannon (John Gannon)
i think im going to have to start again with this ,i brought my ph probeinto a shop today to get it reset butits giving me all sorts of readings i left it in the rainwater for a while ansd rechecked it and it was 6.2 i put ut back in the tank fr a while and it came down to 6.9 .im a bit confussed to what my readings actually are with this .i think it may be time for a new meter
john

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12 Sep 2012 20:29 #6 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
It may need calibrating.

But first, the pH meter is more accurate if the water is swirling gently around the probe......funnily enough the pH affects the accuracy of the probe so that it reads the pH incorrectly.

ian

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12 Sep 2012 21:16 #7 by john gannon (John Gannon)
it was only calobrated today in ph7 and ph4.ive been testing a few different tanks with it today with both high and low ph maybe it just needs a bit more time before adjusting to the correct ph
john

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12 Sep 2012 22:35 #8 by igmillichip (ian millichip)
If calibrated (correctly that is) it should work instantly.

Maybe there is still some calibration buffer on the probe....so a few more washes may wash that off.

ian

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13 Sep 2012 07:40 #9 by john gannon (John Gannon)
I left probe in the tank over night it's now reading 6.6 ,the temp in the tank is now 22.5 c .this tank is kept at ambient room temp in the fish room ,I's it possible temp is affecting ph .
John

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13 Sep 2012 20:45 #10 by igmillichip (ian millichip)

I left probe in the tank over night it's now reading 6.6 ,the temp in the tank is now 22.5 c .this tank is kept at ambient room temp in the fish room ,I's it possible temp is affecting ph .
John


Yep. Temperature has a large impact on pH.

Lighting will also impact on the pH.

I did a reader-friendly piece on what affects pH on here somewhere.....I'll find the thread.

ian

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13 Sep 2012 20:47 #11 by igmillichip (ian millichip)

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