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Thank you, DeepIn peat – your knowledge is valued and appreciated – I must re-read your posts to follow up on this water prep experiment. I will follow your advice for now and not make any drastic changes. I will have to add Indian Almond leaves to the mix – I can get them for a pretty good deal, I believe, here in US. I just made an extract of peat pellets (which I had from before), alder cones and oak leaves. However, I used the boiling method, which I understand is not as beneficial as the soak and aerate method, (but I do not like to sound of air pumps). I added ~25ml of this extract to 4L of RO water and and got 28µS and pH 5.7. The color was light/medium brown. I’ll add more of this same extract to another L of RO in greater volume and test the result.
Regards,
DavidNo problem, glad to help. If you really want to get the most of the peat, it is best to use it in some cilinder and slowly drop the water over the peat. Do not use just pure RO water, add some tap water just to get to like 5 ppm or so, this way you get some ions that the peat (or the humic acids more precisely) will exchange for H+ and you get more acidic water than if you are only leaching the substances out. Also if you are preparing the extract, use tap water to do so, it will have the same effect. You should be able to get to pH 4 or sometimes even lower without adding some anorganic acids. But I never tried any granules, so I can not promise it will work this well. 🙂
Pavel
Thanks, Pavel! I’ll mix in tap with RO to get more ion exchange and devise a drip method of making the extract – more precisely mimics what happens in nature anyway, with water percolating through accumulated organic matter to create the low values 🙂
It does just that. The biomass in a swamp created by dead plant debris that is acidic. If water is naturally acidic, it transpires. Usually it is rainwater that has itself hardly cured.
I do it basically the same way, with rainwater / over peat. If you have a 55 ĩS and peat filterst the Ph value is definitely under 5. You need not worry about the pH do. Too low is really only when it really wants. Ph 3 is found in nature only in the rarest of cases and the number of bacteria will decrease already at pH 5. Few Paros need extreme water values and I use it only to get as many fertilized eggs. But with “normal values” for example, 5.5 to 6 pH are always fertilized eggs and one has to always get enough pups to the stock.
Greeting BerndOk thanks for the info on water values – I think it is close to being in a good range. Rainwater over peat sounds good – I will try the method with several acidic organic materials and experiment with methods of percolating. This is an interesting activity of this project. Results to follow.
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