TAP WATER TDS 180 PH 6.8 to 7 Ammonia 0 NITRITE 0 Nitrate- 5ppm

Help me out

Been through your chlorine articles and have decided to get rid of the carbon block filters and just use sodium thiosulfate in my prep barrel as you suggested. Still working whether I want to just do manual changes or set it up for a continuous drip given I’ll need to also dose to drop the PH. Latest water report has the water leaving the tap at 7.6 PH… Not sure if this will have an impact on where it buffers to after a few days of aeration.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for this site. I can’t say it enough, and it’s a real shame so many people seem to be too entrenched to see what a goldmine of information you’ve provided here.

Thanks for the reply! I should have been clearer: I have a sediment filter and two 20″ block filters (one for chlorine removal and a second for chloramine removal). These are rated for removal at a flow rate of 15lpm, and then I have a valve to control the flow rate through them correctly. I can send you a link to the one I have if that helps.

I used to have around 10,000 litres in my fishroom and would prepare all of my water for water changes in a couple of 1000 litre IBC totes, hence the massive carbon block filters. As you can imagine changing thousands of litres per week sucked all of the fun out of keeping fish eventually!

I’ve since shut my import company down and have just finished rebooting my fishroom. I will now be keeping show tanks just for myself again. I have the space to prepare water in advance but could do with picking your brain about the best way if you have time…

I’m also struggling to choose between poret and K1 for my sump as poret is available at trade price to me (due to me being a reseller when I had my company). I left my email with the previous comment if you fancy discussing any of this further?

In reply to Kev …. 1, Carbon blocks can slowly remove chlorine but do little to chloramine. It will do little to pH in either case. And yeas, you have a lot of CO2 gas in your tap water. 8.8 pH needs some corrective action.

2, The way I set-up one drip system in high pH water was with a barrel (actually just a 40 gallon aquarium with a deep UGF and a dosing pump) I used a combination of sodium thiosulfate and hydrochloric acid feeding a very slow flow. I also ghost fed every day in order to establish a good eco-system in the feed tank.

3, I tried to stay on Facebook but too many of the Facebook groups are just too profit oriented and they ban me when I post one of my articles.

Three things:

Firstly, my tap water exits the tap with a PH of 7.0. Once aged and agitated it settles at 8.8. I guess this is due to CO2 gassing off… Any thoughts on this? I do have a large carbon block filter to remove chlorine and chloramine and I’ve been told this type of filter can cause a small increase in PH but I’m not sure if this is just another myth in the hobby!

Secondly, I’m planning on installing a continuous drip and overflow on my biggest tank to handle water changes as per your article on water changes. I’m currently suffering from analysis paralysis because I’m concerned about your suggestion that a PH over 8.5 warrants reducing. So now I don’t know whether to use a barrel to prepare the water before performing manual water changes, or go with the continuous drip/overflow.

Finally, have you stopped using Facebook? I’ve found you in quite a few groups but haven’t seen any posts since 2022. I would love to talk to you in depth on so many of these articles if you’d be so inclined…

Thank you for sharing your knowledge; finding this site has breathed new life into this hobby for me. I’ve got so many projects on the go for the first time in years!

In reply to Alex …. No idea. Sorry.

Alex