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I have a Hagen 304 filter, and am considering adding peat fiber or granules to help, among other things, lower the pH in my tank. My pH is sitting at around 7.4/7.6 without any additives. Does anyone know how much to expect the peat to lower my pH? FYI this is in a 55 gallon tank.

The softening will be very small, but probably still worthwhile. It takes roughly one pound of peat to effect the pH in a 55 gallon tank. You may see a slight softening of your water but only a very, very slight pH drop, if any.
-Shane

Thanks Shane!

This helps.. I don't want to shift the pH too much, so this sounds like it will be perfect.

I used to keep Killifish in a 20 gallon tank and used about 3litres of peat loose in the tank. It certainly made it go a dark brown colour, but that was so much the better.

I don't know how much the peat weighed; all I can say is that it is very light when dry! I used gardening moss peat that was guaranteed not to contain any additives and was much cheaper than Hagen or Eheim peat fibres.

My tap water is pH 7.6 and a quite astonishing 20GH, but it lowered the pH to a steady 6.8, although as it was a few years ago I can't say if it had performed any softening. It was certainly good enough to induce my Aphyosemions to spawn

The effect wore off after a few months and it was necessary to replace some of it reasonably regularly. It seemed to have some anti-algae action but I wouldn't swear to it.

If I were you then I'd only half-fill one of the baskets in your filter and see how that goes for a fortnight before adding any more as the pH may change quite quickly with the water being forced through the peat.

I have them, not in the filter, but buried under the sand, in my riverine setup.

you should see the fish....they really enjoy the yellow water, the pH and the softer water.

As a bonus it "buffers" your water, so once eshtablished, the pH won't peak or drop suddenly anymore.

what backing soda does for Malawi/Tanganyikan fishkeepers, is peat for the South American/West African crowd

good stuff, definitely.

Sid,
I could not agree more. In all my planted tanks I lay down a first layer of about 1" of peat. I have noticed that the plants go through a second growth phase once their roots make it down to the peat layer.
-Shane

works great, huh?

one drawback (or maybe two); if you have too many plants and need to curb the growth, you have to remove some very careful....

and true diggers cannot be kept in there; the idea of my GroundHog* wallowing in there............




*that's my Auchenoglanis

i've had bad experiences with peat. lots of expense using aquarium peat (i was too scared to use anything else) and very little results.

i gave up and bought some kent liquid pH-minus. i add 10ml to each 8 gal weekly water change in my 60 gal tank. it takes several weeks (as it should) but the pH creeps down. mine is now a respectable 6.8!

peat does give you a nice tannic stain, but i get that with bogwood anyway.

i recommend that you get a digital pH meter (mine was £30 off ebay). it makes it a lot lot easier to mess around with the pH.


sidguppys technique sounds really good though.

Sid,
It is certainly not a system (using a peat substrate) for diggers, but then these are not really appropriate fish for a heavily planted tank. I never uproot plants, I just cut them back or let them go wild. My planted tank style is "real nature" and not the manicured Amano or Dutch style of planted aquaria.

Racoll,
You are right that peat is a lot of work. If an aquarist is serious about soft water, an RO system is the only way to go. Prices on RO systems have come down A LOT. I picked up a Coralife 55 gpd system with a deionization canister for US $130.00 a week ago. It is a lot of money up front, but goes a very long way towards helping with delicate fishes and breed soft water spp.
-Shane[/img]

you're absolutely right shane. buying an RO has been the biggest turning point in my fishkeeping.

it gives you almost total control over your water.

it takes a lot of the worry and guess work out of fishkeeping.

An affordable alternative to peat granules sold at the LFS is Sphagnum Moss (not the "fossil" peat which is typically found at garden stores)...you can check this out at
<a href="http://www.mosserlee.com/whatis.html">www.mo
sserlee.com</a>.

I've been using this to soften water and acidify my aquariums with excellent results. This moss can be placed in a mesh bag and suspended in the tank, placed in filter chambers, or boil some and add the boiled water as an "extract" to tank water. Adds humic acid which may be good for plants. My fish get happy when new peat water goes in...I keep community tanks with cardinals, rasboras, corydoras, clown loaches, Otocinclus, and more.

This low tech acidification may be useful, and safer than some chemicals if one only needs to lower pH by .5 or so.

Disclaimer: I'm no expert, so be sure <I>you're</I> confident about what you're doing, and exercise caution whenever adding new stuff like this to your tank.

Best wishes,

Chris Windram