no, you don't need to add carbon. The acid from the peat will release hydrogen ions which will bind with calcium in your water, lowering your hardness.
That product is just pelletized peat, which will unpelletize as soon as you put it in your filter. Might as well grab some peat from the hardware store and save yourself a few dollars. Fluval also has a peat product which is also just peat moss.
How do you recommend I should use the peat? Some youtube video selling peat ball and they just squeeze the hell out of it in water making it look so dirty.
Other use it as substrate but it's too late for that now since my tank already accomplished for quite a long time now.
Can I create a smaller peat ball and left it sitting in my filter?
Yes, get a filter media bag .59 cents from petsmart and pack it full of peat. Then put that in your filter.
Every month or two when the peat stops working, remove the bag, dump it in your garden, and then fill it with new peat. Then just replace it in your filter and voila.
However you said your pH is 6.6, which is fine for most everything. Is there a reason you want to drop it more? Peat would probably make it 5 or less.
if you don't want your tank to look "dirty" or stained with tannins, add some carbon, or better- seachem purigen- to your filter. it will remove the tannins but the lowered pH will remain.
scooped about two 6 tablespoon worth each for my tank. It has been sitting in my filter for almost 24 hours and I notice pH dropped from 7.3 to 7.1. How long will it take for me to get it to 6.6 or lower?
Also is that enough? 6 table spoon each for 13 gallon and 3 gallon tank.
The Miracle Gro moss is going to be loaded with ferts and that's not something you want to be putting into your tanks or your filter. I don't think you should be using that at all and I would take it out. You need spagnum peat moss without any ferts in it.
In addition, the problem with adding peat to a filter, is it's going to exhaust itself and then your pH will rise so you constantly have to check ph to make sure it's not rising, then when it is, you have to change the peat, and then it will lower again, and you can't control how low it will lower.
With my current setup and testing, I can get it pretty stable at 5.8 for my first bottle, 6.0 for my 2nd, 6.4 for my third, and I use those for different tanks that I want a different pH in. I can squeeze the peat and get water coming out at 4.0pH though, so it can have a variety of effects.
I would take that out of your filter though, I wouldn't trust the ferts in there.
hey cookie, Home stores will carry it like lowes or homedepot. Organic is best if you can source it. If you went to home depot, have then check this Store SKU # 673166, Model # 064277-200303
You can use this one:
This Lakeland 3.0 cu. ft. Sphagnum Peat Moss is genuine Canadian sphagnum. The organic peat moss comes in a compressed-volume bale that will expand when opened.
hey cookie, Home stores will carry it like lowes or homedepot. Organic is best if you can source it.
You can use this one:
This Lakeland 3.0 cu. ft. Sphagnum Peat Moss is genuine Canadian sphagnum. The organic peat moss comes in a compressed-volume bale that will expand when opened.
Can depends on how much you use, filter it through or whatever. Like I said, I can get anywhere from a source of 8pH/8gH/8kH down to 4pH/3gH/0kH if I want. Depends on how you use it.
As for the OP, anything I've read about using peat was to make sure there is no ferts in it, so that's why I said that. Could be wrong but unless you tank is highly, highly, highly planted, you're adding ammonia, phosphorus and a bunch of stuff directly into your water.
That's why I filter my water through it instead before I add it, then the water is at the pH I want and don't have to add it or replace in the filter of the tank.
We've been using Hoffman's Canadian Spagnum Peat Moss to pre-filter our tap water. When the peat is fresh, it brings my pH from 8.6+ to sub-6 with just one filtration step. You can buy it on Amazon for ~$10-15 dollars for 10 quarts worth which lasts about 6 months for me.
More recently, I bought the EHEIM torfpellets and put the pelletized peat into my 30G tanks and have been able to hold my pH steady at around 6.4-6.6 or so. Still pre-filtering through the peat moss though.
Mr Appleton, that's an awesome tip. The Hoffman Sphagnum peat moss is way more affordable than the miracle-gro with all the stuff we don't want. Curious how your water is prefiltered?
I know this post was made awhile back, but I had a few questions. My tap is at 7.5 and after aerating in the tank it climbs to 8. Im now using a water softening pillow for two days now and it registers at 7.6-7.8. If I used peat as well would the change be drastic?
Also, would it work the same to leave the peat in the container I condition my water in? I age my water about a week and was planning to dump it in. Would it be necessary to also put peat in my filter for the effects to maintain, or will my aged water retain the lower pH?
I was hoping to leave the peat in while I aged my water and just carry on with my weekly changes, hopefully lowering the tanks pH little by little. Id like to get it to 6.8.
It's depend of your KH .Probably you will need more peat to keep PH 6.8 I prefer to fill one bag with peat /fist size/ and hang it in the tank , not in the filter. When the peat is in the filter PH go down very fast. With peat in the tank PH changes are less dramatic.
Ill try that. In any case Ill try this product cause spagnum peat isnt that easy to find where I live.
Is the KH and GH test different from TDS?
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