Lowering the pH

[aquaarche]

I heard Vinegar lowers the pH but after a gallon if it in my system my water still stays at 8.5-9. which is way to high for the plats to take up nutrients.

Any suggestions?

the pebbles we purchased came from the sea and it may be why the pH is high. it was completely washed though but some say the shell fragments may be causing high pH.

any natural ways to get the pH down to 7-7.5

[badflash]

If you are using coral as a substrate, or any carbonate rock, you'll not get your pH down. You need to replace it with something neutral like quarzite, granite, fired clay, etc.

Carbonate rocks will buffer the water to above 8.5.

[jackalope]

I found out the hard way that the acid in vinegar doesn't do any good if you've got the wrong kind of media in the growbed - it just lasted for a few hours and then went right back up where it started .... you have to use a good acid, as badflash told me ..... it was muriatic ..... be right back .... I'll get a link to the thread ...... here it is:Clik ;) (http://www.diyaquaponics.com/forum/showthread.php?58-Wolfracer-s-System-Build)
it's on page 11 of wolfracer's system build, and badflash says:
You can condition your make-up water with a little Muratic Acid. You can get it by the gallon at home depot. It doesn't take very much, so be careful if you use it.
and
You could calculate it, but depending on the species of what is buffering the water, you need different amounts. I put in an eye dropper full (5ml) per 100 gallons, wait an hour and test. Repeat until the pH is where you want it. Be sure to have lots of flow to be sure it is all mixed. As the pH drops, more limestone may go into solution, so it can take some time to get it where you want it.

Remember that pH is a log scale, so as you go from 9 to 8 it takes 10 times as much acid as it takes to go from 8 to 7. Go cautiously. Use rubber gloves and a face shield. You can't replace your eyes.

Perhaps someday he'll enlighten us about how to calculate it, but the way he shows is good enuff for me ;) His idea of getting rid of the rocks was a good suggestion .... when I took out all the "lava rock" which I found out was some sort of fake product made of clay (and probably cement and lime), my tomatoes started to fruit, and my Guppies are being fruitful and multiplying ;).

[badflash]

The problem is "the pebbles we purchased came from the sea" That means coral. You'd have to disolve all the stone way to stop the pH from rebounding. The rocks are the problem. Without changing them I see no way to control the pH.

[aquaarche]

Hey everyone,

I replaced the stones with river rock pebbles I put water from a well and rain water when I first started the PH was 7 the next day 9.0. so then I scrubbed out the fish tank. and replaced the water again. 7.5 when I started and 9 the next day.

does anyone have any idea what I am doing wrong.

did I need to totally sterilize all the plastic components of my barrelponics?

it seems to be totally crazy. it has been five days since I changed the rock and four days since I scrubbed the fish tank. there was very little left of the bacterial growth and stuff in the system after that.

should I just wait it out two weeks and see what happens. my beans and lettuce sprouted already.

[wolfracer]

It took a long time for my ph to fall because of limestones mixed in with my pea gravel. But it eventually came down to normal over time. Vinegar and muraitic acid only worked short term and were pretty hard on my plants. I thinks the limestone just had to dissolve out.

[aquaarche]

there is no lime stone in this rock. the average pH of the soil in the area where we got the river rock is 5.6 I know this becase someone charted the pH in this area when they did a study of the whole Island. that is why I find it strange.

but they have done clothes washing in the area and it could be some pH is caused by the soaps used along the river by the people living along it. but I did a check of the pH of the water in the river it is 7

[wolfracer]

Something is buffering your ph. Has your sytem cycled? Do you have pictures, maybe it something like your tank or grow bed containers?

[badflash]

Ernie- his pH is high, not low. Either his test kit is wacked out, or something is adding caustic to the system. In my experience, shells do a great job of bringing pH up, but not down. Have you personnaly been able to lower high pH with shells?

[badflash]

The big problem with peat is that it is exhusted quickly and turns the water brown. Something in his system is buffering the water way high. He's be using bales of the stuff. I have to suspect there is something in the system, likely rocks that are doing this. Coral is still the big suspect in my mind.

[aquaarche]

well I am not sure. the plastic drums are supposed to be clean there is no smell to them. There was one that I had it did have a smell of fabric softener so I didn't use it. but the rest cleaned up well and no smell or taste from the drums that I can tell.

you know I haven't lost a single fish all the fish are fat and healthy no diseases. the pH test kit I have I bought from a pet store for checking the pH in your fish tank. 5cc water add 7 drops and the blue color chart tells you the pH. when I did it the day I changed the rock it was 7 to 7.5 two days later 9

It may be to sometime is takes a while for the whole system to stabilized and seeing I just changed the rock it could take a while before the whole thing come down again.

if it wont come down by the end of December. I could remove the rock and put a plastic sheeting liner in it and try again. if that doesn't work I give up on using barrels. and try making everything from other materials I know for sure are not contaminated.

[badflash]

It isn't the barrels. Set up another barrel with no rock and circulate water as if you were going to grow plants and test the water, then move some of that rock over and see what happens. I put 5 pounds of coral gravel in a 1000 gallon system and the pH went to 8 in 24 hours.

[aquaarche]

all the new rock is from a river in the mountains, no coral there.

no dead fish.

it came down to around 8.5 yesterday which is better than nine.

[aquaarche]

hey everyone,

If you didn't know Travis Hughey has a web page with 10's of thousands of pages of info on all sorts of stuff to do with Aquaculture, Aquaponics and more. under the technology button he has all sorts of info on how to buffer your water, change pH and hardness. there is a vast resource there.

here is the link. I have found it helpful and I know you will too.

http://www.fastonline.org/content/section/4/29/

[aquaarche]

well we discovered the problem.

It was our deep well water though it tested 7pH it was had a high kH and gH which when mixed with the nitrates it shot the pH up to 9. the minerals dissolved in the water was 568ppm which means our deep well is liquid rock.

in an attempt to lower the pH I added Muriatic acid and it worked. but I didn't check the pH and added another cup 24 hours later and killed the fish. only one cup was need apparently. I took 60% of the water out replaced it with rain water and no chlor treated tap water. bought new fish the pH has remained at 7. and all my new plants are doing well.

Thanks for all your help