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I am preparing a new Paro tank :blush: :whistle: 😉 and I try to manage without using peat and without using chemicals.
I use my osmosis water, mix it with a bit tap water (we have about 250µS) till I have about 20µS.
I have done Beech leaves, one Catappa leave and alder cones into the water.Since some days I measure every day morning and evening the parameter pH and EC:
EC: 20 – 28 µS
pH: 4,9 – 5,2In my “peat tanks” (the osmosis water soaked for some hours with some peat granules) I have pH 4,2 – 5,2, so I can see not so much difference.
Nice, that is pretty much what I do besides I make alder cones extract and ketapang extract first and use beech leaves as a substrate 🙂 Works perfectly so far. I think use of renewable sources instead of peat to prepare the water should be our goal for the future as destroing peat bogs from other localities to preserve species from asian peat bogs does not make much sence 😉
Hello Pavel,
yes, seems to work good, implied that a pH around 5 is o.k. for our Paros.
Or do you provide a lower pH with your extracts?Hello Dorothee,
I did not bother trying yet, but I think you should be able to get lower pH values than you do now. Sadly as long as we use any kind stuff such as alder cones or Terminalia catappa leaves, the results will never be fully comparable. The concetration of active substances may differ a lot and the acid neutralisation capacity of your water may differ from mine even thought we will end up with the same conductivity. Also keep in mind that the pH readings are not exact. I am not sure how much this fact is known, but if you want to measure pH in conductivity lower then 30µS you either should be using a special electrode (mostly possible only with laboratory devices that allow you to exchange electrodes. + the machine and the electrode is like 10x more expensive) to get exact readings OR (much easier 😉 ) you need to take some water from the tank and make the conductivity higher by adding small amount of KCl (3M KCl electrode storing solution) or NaCl. Than you get acurate readings even with the types of devices we use for our purposes (within the boundaries of the device). So we have to be careful about how acurate we can expect our readings to be.
Anyways if you need extreme pH, I am sure we would be able to come up with some good kation exchanger resin to prepare such water, that would be easy to use and one could use it for years. The principle is the same as with peat, which is (or more precisely humic acids in it) kation exchanger too besides leaching out some acids in the first place. On the other hand, the Ketapang leaves extract has such a strong antibacterial effect that lower pH values very likely would not be needed.Hello Pavel,
yes, I have heard about that (the problem that pH can’t be measured exactly with normal electrodes if EC is very low).
What is your experience? Is the real pH lower or higher? how much differs the measure from “reality”?
Whats about measuring pH with my photometer?Hallo Pavel, I’m still thinking about what you wrote. How much differs the measurement of pH electrode in water with lower EC than 30? I couldn’t find nothing in the web. Just that adding NaCl would not really help. But my knowledge about chemistry isn’t very good.
And what’s about drop tests? How do they work in low EC?
And why do plants make a higher pH? My Salvinia minima grows and grows … It’s a pity that at the moment it’s to cold to send them away to blackwater aquarists who would like them….
Hello, somehow I missed this. Well I never really tried to compare such readings as I simply had the equipment. I knew I was going to measure pH in very low conductivity water so I bought the right electrode for that. Than I had no fish for couple years and sold all my laboratory devices that I had. When I started again I just bought normal stuff. How the electrode works is quite well explained for example here (not sure how much this helps 🙂 ): http://www.allaboutcircuits.com/vol_1/chpt_9/6.html. Anyways there are probably some parameters that need to be changed (type of membrane or electrolite) in water with that very low cunductivity as they infulence the readings for the standard electrodes too much in such environment and therefore the electrodes have to be adjusted.
Hello Pavel,
Thank you! The link makes clear what the problem is!Now I have to learn about drop tests 😉
Drop tests with my photometer don’t seem to be influenced by the EC.
By the way – my electrode of my pH meter seems to be exhausted. It measures in water with EC 60 microsiemens pH 5,9 while my photometer reads just 4,9 pH. And much lower I never had been, even with peat.Another question: some time ago I told, that my new peat granules make EC higher when soaked in my osmosis water. Then came with Peter Finkes answer, that our German peat is no more plenty available, and therefore not the best quality when formed to granules, the thoughts to leave peat.
Now I have begun to soak elder cones in osmosis water to get a concentrate and had the same result: within one day pH about 4,5 and EC 250. …..
What’s about that? Are that just the concentrated humin and fulvin acids or harming substances???I have to be short, but:
1) Drop test will not be influenced, different reagents just turn to specificic color at certain pH.
2) EC going up with alder cones and ketapang leaves is perfectly ok, these are the substances you want in the water, it is just concentrated so you need to learn to work with that. Just find out how much of how concentrated extract you need to add in to certain volume of water. EC helps you track this. Have a look at my reciepe for paro water, you can follow simmilar scheme.
As far as peat goes, there are many types of it and some lower quality peats may release for example to much of fulvic acids at the beginning. However, no need to bother with that. What you are mostly interested with peat is not what you are able to leach out as simmilar (and even better) substances are easy to obtain elsewhere. It is much better to work with the kation exchange capacity of the peat, that will help you acidify the water much further. But it is not needed too, in case we need we are able to find some high kapacity katex that would do the thing.
How exactly the pH value should be measured and what is needed.
I also have such a device, use it but rather to be seen how the pH value has been developing, the value goes up or down. In nature, nobody stands and adjusts the pH value. You can be sure that varies greatly in the biotopes of the ph value depending on the season. :huh:Nach jahrelanger Erfahrung weiß man sicherer was mit dem Wasser los ist, denke ich.
Wenn man erst neu beim “Schwarzwassermachen ist, ist man unsicherer, vor allem, wenn man wie ich, es ohne Torf probieren möchte. Aber Pavels Rezept funktioniert prima! 😉In English:
With some years experience you now from “feeling” how the water behaves. But if you are a new blackwater fan, you are not so sure about all that parameters, especially if one wants to try without peat, like me now.
But Pavels recipe works well! 😉
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