Water preparation using hydrochloric acid, influence on EC?

[Steffen Menne]

Hi everyone,

as a newbie to this forum and to the topic of parosphromenus fish keeping let me first say hello from Germany.

I think about starting a paro aquarium, with one of the easier to keep species of parosphromenus. Our tap water has an EC > 800 mS/cm. For my other tank I bought a RO plant. But because of the high EC of the tap water, water after RO still has an EC of about 65 mS/cm, albeit with a KH <1.
This is fine for my Nannostomus, which I keep in a blend of RO and tap water at about 300 mS/cm and pH ~6,7.

For the paros I'm thinking about lowering the water using hydrochloric acid. My question is: Does anyone with experience in this method can tell me if this will increase the EC to a value that is not suitable anymore for paro keeping and breeding? If so I will use peat, but if not I think hydrochloric acid is the more environmental friendly and easier method.
I found the quote: "Per degree of KH lowered by hydrochlorid acid, the EC will increase by 11 mS/cm. Per halving of the KH the pH will be lowered by .3" (deters-ing.de/Wasser/ph.htm)
If I understand this correctly, with my RO water a very small amount of hydrochloric acid should be able to lower pH to about 5 without raising the EC by any significant amout. But before I by acid, I would like to know if someone has experience doing this.

Thank you in advance, and please excuse if this has been addressed before, but I could not find a similar thread.

[Joshua Morgan]

I don’t have an RO unit, but I use a distiller…never more than 4 microsiemens out of the distiller (and usually more like 1 or 2…depends on how clean the water compartment is). I then used a diluted (1/8th teaspoon to 200ml old paro water) sodium bisulfate mixture, about 5ml per gallon/3.78 litres, and that’s enough to keep the water in the mid 4’s ph with only about 17 microsiemens (I add alder cone extract to add some tannins). Sodium bisulfate is probably not as strong as hydrochloric acid but is also much less likely to prompt an ER visit (thus why I didn’t ever try phosphoric acid…no acid burns for me! 🙂 )

[Peter Finke]

I appreciate your thinking not to use peat. This would mean to engage in a destruction similar to that which we complain about.

But I should advise you not to use hydrochloric acid, it is much too strong. You cannot handle it with waters of very low a mineral content. Myself, I have made good experiences with phosphoric acid and market solutions harvested from oak tree acid. But, this is not safe at any case. There are brands that enhance the mineral content too much, whereas others are rather good for our needs. You must try. The same product could be differently composed in different countries ad at different times. Mostly, “Sera pH minus” was acceptable and effective in Germany, but in Britain it was not to be recommended.

Surely, the use of natural substances like fresh acid peat wood (“Moorkienholz”), dry leaves of oak, beech or Catappa, or alder cones is most to be recommended. But they have the disadvantage that the darkening of the water maybe too strong (especially in the case of too many alder cones); therefore you should prefer a misture of methods. Then, a few drops (not more!) of a phosphoric acid will help.

[Dorothee Jöllenbeck-Pfeffel]

Hi, Steffen, as Peter tells, some chemicals are dangerous and we have already too much of them in our world.
Our water here near Freiburg has about EC 220, so an osmosis plant works fine. But even with an EC of about 60 I get a pH value of 4,5-5,3. (Yes, it depends on the dKh value …)
Look for Pawels water recipe here: “As I started to think much more about ecology when I became a member here and did not want to use peat in large amounts anymore, I prepare my water like this: (reciepe for 10 liters) 1 liter alder cone extract (let infuse big handful of alder cones in 1 liter RO water for a week) 1 liter Ketapang extract (Terminalia catapa leaves extract prepared the same way as previous, if you want to use it make sure to order the real stuff from Asia, brown red and honey smell, sometimes they sell almost green leaves collected right from the trees and that is just useless) and 1 ml of Aquahum (artificialy prepared solution of 50:50 humic and fulvic acids made by humidifying celulose leftovers after paper production under laboratory conditions) ad RO water to the amount of 10 liters. Of course you do not have to make such semilabarotary tricks and you may use just peat and add beech leaves in to the tank. It works fine, just be aware that soft and acidic is not enough, you need to use humic substances too.”

As I don’t need so much stuff for my few tanks, I take a two liter glass bowl, put into it a piece of cattappa leaves, a small handful of elder cones, two oak leaves. I let it rest for one day, and then I add it to the water change – water. That’s enough. With Aquahum I am now very careful, if I use it, I take maximum one drop for 5l water, because I suspect that it colors the filaments of the fish with black spots.
I don’t use peat anymore.

[Peter Finke]

“I don’t use peat anymore”

Be praised, Dorothee. Many of the old and experienced aquarists, who should have learned the lessons, have not yet come to that insight.

Peter

[Steffen Menne]

Thank you very much for taking the time to write these elaborate replies. I see that I did right by joining this forum.

I bought the tank last weekend and am eager to start. But now, as soon as my pH meter arrives, I will first do some experimenting with alder cones and leaves, to see what will give me a stable and low pH, preferably without the use of chemicals.

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