My DIY peat filter

[GeToChKn]

Originally Posted by diwu13

Do you pay for your water or is it "free"?

I pay. lots, hence my want of not going RO if I can as wasting 4-1 for it. lol.

[diwu13]

Oh ! Yea I see now haha. I was just thinking how much water I was wasting running the tap for hours on end to fill 5G buckets.

[GeToChKn]

Originally Posted by diwu13

Oh ! Yea I see now haha. I was just thinking how much water I was wasting running the tap for hours on end to fill 5G buckets.

It's a slow drip and whether its 20mins to fill 20gallons or 6 hours to fill 20gallons, it's still only 20gallons of water used in the end. RO would be 80-100 gallons used. Now if it doesn't work, I'll have to go the RO route but I'm testing, always looking to save money and be cheap about my hobby. lol.

[acitydweller]

I would love to have something like a brita filter for this.... would make things much easier for me. Maybe i have to hack one of mine open as a test! HMMMM!

[GeToChKn]

Since bringing the pH down from 8.2-8.4 down to 7.2 using peat filtered water and tap water mixed, my yellows and tigers are loving it and I have about 6 berried shrimp between the 2. Beats the 0 berried I had for months before hand because of the high pH water I've gotten in the last 6 months.

[HD Blazingwolf]

This is awesome!

[GeToChKn]

Originally Posted by HD Blazingwolf

This is awesome!

After some testing and working with it, I have it pretty consistent to get whatever pH I want mixing with tap or minerals as it comes out about 5.2pH 3-4gH, 0-1kH from the peat filter and about 3 handfuls of peat makes me 20gal of water at those params. That's about 10 cents worth of peat.

[GeToChKn]

The key to this is the speed of the water passing through the peat. Too fast and it doesn't do enough buffering. It takes me about 1.5hrs to make a 5gal jug, probably not much slower than a RO unit takes to make it. I add a bit of mineral plus back to boost it up a bit and get some trace minerals in there.

So far everyone is doing good with it, got about 7 berried CRS in it, some babies around. Lost some babies but that's probably a nitrate issue right now since mine are high and I'm working on taking that down. For my tigers/rcs/yellows, I mix about 1/4 peat water with tap water and it gets it about 6.8pH 180TDS to use them for them.

[HD Blazingwolf]

HEY i thought u might like this as far as time saving
i took ur idea but fused it with a cerge reactor
peat floss and carbon. about 3 handfulls of peat in a mesh bag, floss to prevent particles and carbon to keep it clear

run in a 5 gallon bucket by a 200 gph pump and 20 minutes later. poof 6.8 ph and 3 kh

haven't tested the tds difference yet. i will do that tomorrow when i do the shrimp water change

[acitydweller]

GeToChKn, Have you tested if running the same water in multiple passes of the filter further lower ph or render no further benefit?

[GeToChKn]

Originally Posted by acitydweller

GeToChKn, Have you tested if running the same water in multiple passes of the filter further lower ph or render no further benefit?

1 pass with it going from a drip from my shower head through the peat gives me 100TDS, 5.3pH. I don't want it any lower. lol. The faster the water goes through in a reactor type of state, or what they call a "peat bomb" (pvc tubing filled with peat) will give a lot higher results in pH/TDS, but with a slow drip, 1 pass is good.

[GeToChKn]

Originally Posted by HD Blazingwolf

HEY i thought u might like this as far as time saving
i took ur idea but fused it with a cerge reactor
peat floss and carbon. about 3 handfulls of peat in a mesh bag, floss to prevent particles and carbon to keep it clear

run in a 5 gallon bucket by a 200 gph pump and 20 minutes later. poof 6.8 ph and 3 kh

haven't tested the tds difference yet. i will do that tomorrow when i do the shrimp water change

Cool. Glad others are trying other stuff with this. I've thought of doing something else eventually with it. I tried using a separate tank before with peat in it, but that didn't work. Still a few more things to try and may try your idea at some point.

[acitydweller]

I think your contribution is stickie worthy!

[Snowflake311]

I have made black water by putting peat in a mesh bag and soaking it in hot water. It's pretty amazing how fast it works.

It would not hurt to keep a bag of peat in the filter to help. I use to keep peat in the filter with really good results.

[GeToChKn]

Originally Posted by Snowflake311

I have made black water by putting peat in a mesh bag and soaking it in hot water. It's pretty amazing how fast it works.

It would not hurt to keep a bag of peat in the filter to help. I use to keep peat in the filter with really good results.

I would add it to a filter if your water was close anyways and keep replacing it. The problem is people think you can put some in your filter and use very different water with it. It does wear out and take a bit to get activated, so it would be a balancing game. To have some in a filter though just to help keep the gh/kh/ph down and replacing the same amount at a regular time interval might be a bit helpful.