softening water with peat

[aspen]

my tapwater is gh 8, kh 4, ph 7.8 after aerating. i want to try softening my water in a 35 gal tank. i have BIG bale of peat and i want to know how much of an effect simply running a bag of peat in my tank will have. will the gh, kh and ph all go down, and be similar to cutting my water with r/o, or will it just turn the water brown with little effect on parms? my water is very resistant to ph changes.

i am down to bi-weekly water changes and i think i can run some in my change water (15 gal fishtank for a holding tank) and in the main tank to try and keep it stable.

any ideas on how successful this will be without running 1/2 1/2 r/o to tapwater?

rick

[Z Man]

Aspen,
I worked with a bale of peat moss about 2 years ago when breeding Taeniacara candidi but I started out with RO in the first place. I threw a few handfuls of the stuff in 2 ten gallon pails and just let it set. The problem is that it takes so long for the peat to settle on the bottom. I would stir it often until most went down. I then siphoned the liquid out and used a brine shrimp net to filter out some of the pieces but the fine particles always got through. I worked OK and I got the pH down to about 5.5 but is was a real pain to work with. I ended up with that fine stuff all over the tank. But they bred and no, I wouldn't use it again UNLESS it was a fish I really, really wanted to breed. I would think that putting a bag or nylon stocking filled with peat would still leave quite a mess. Just my thoughts.
Z Man

[Neil]

aspen,
If you use a combination of RO and tap, you will be reducing the hardness of your water. When you reduce the hardness of the water, it is easier to lower the pH and keep it there (as long as you still have some kind of buffering element). Then you can add peat to the mix and get better results. When I use peat, I typically find a way of very slowly "trickling" the water across it. Using your 15g. reservior tank with tap in it, you will still get results if you can figure out a way to continually circulate the water slowly over peat. But remember that each time you do a water change in this 15g. tank, the fresh water will probably act to bring the pH back up.
To effectively alter the pH in your 35g. you will have to do a number of water changes from the 15g.
When all is said and done, it would be much simpler to "cut" the water with RO and then work with it. IMO. Neil

[mordor]

I was using peat extract to lower pH and slight lowering of hardness was a side effect. It's much easier to get this result with RO water.