Minneapolis Water

[xanderAle]

Does anyone here use pressurized CO2 in their tanks with Minneapolis water?

[jdm68]

No CO2 yet, but I will be doing it when I redo my tank setup. I'm in NE as well! How are your water parameters with our lovely water here?

[xanderAle]

Well the pH comes out of the tap around 9 and after sitting out it settled to 7.9 this morning. There is nothing to hold up the pH. KH is 0 and GH is 60. I heard that Mpls add poly/ortho phosphates as buffer and to keep water from deteriorating the pipes. There is even Nitrates in the water this spring. I have 5ppm NO3 in the tap water now.

[xanderAle]

The problem is that with CO2 it drops the pH. I added Baking Soda to rasie the KH to 5 but the pH keeps dropping. The CO2 shuts off if it drops below 6.5. On and older tank the pH has stayed around 6.8 to 6.9 with CO2. I'm thinking that the KH gets dissolved too fast in the new tank. I also worry about the phosphate the city adds.

[jdm68]

Yeah, I heard about the phosphate issue when talking to a lady a WOF. Our hardness is suuuuuper low. My water is pretty stable, but not a lot of buffer. I'm thinking of putting some crushed oyster shells in the tank once I do a reset. Interestingly, my pH out of the tap is lower than yours. Once I tested and got really acidic water, but every other time it has been quite neutral, like 6.8 to 7.2, so I don't know. You ever think of RO water?

[babystarz]

Weird, I get readings of 8.0-8.2 pretty regularly. I wonder why that is?

[storrisch]

Out of the tap it is around 9 at my place and will drop to 6 - 6.5 within a day. I buffer with sodium bicarbonate (baking soda.) The kh is 0 so without adding some kind of buffer i've seen the ph crash to 4 within a day. Learned my lesson the first week I moved to Minneapolis from Bloomington. I buffer the water to 7 kh before doing a water change. I can make RO/DI as well but typically just use tap.

[tropicalmackdaddy]

i get around 8.0-8.4 straight out of tap, and letting it sit for 24h gets me down to about 7.4-7.6. Im setting up a tank with co2 soon and AS so we will se how low I can get the PH

[tylergvolk]

I live in south Minneapolis and my tap pH was 7.6 the last time I tested. I have pressurized co2 on my planted 20L see my signature for pictures and details.

I've never really worried about the pH change during water changes. My drop checker always reads about 6.8 (green) during the day and is about 7.6 (Blue) during the night.

I keep Platies, otto's, plecos, and RCS.

Hope this helps.