water purifiers?

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oobydooby

New Member
has anyone ever used a tap water purifier to lower ph and gh and kh? my tap water comes out at a ph of about 7.5 to 7.8 gh 4-5 and kh about 3-4 I used a pur water filter i had laying around and tested the waters after using it.. ph 6.5 tp 6.8 kh and gh both went down to 1 to 2! anyone else have luck using these? does the filter take out any needed elements that i might need ant not know about? if not im off to start some taiwan bees ! :D
 
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binbin9

New Member
I went through the same process, before starting my taiwan bee tank, the amount of work to filter a whole bunch of water vs the cost to get an RO unit, just didnt pan out.

I went as far as creating my own drip filter with carbon and peat to lower the PH.

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It was a bit of a learning experience though. MY PH fluctuated and was very unstable, I killed a bunch of shrimp.

However with the right substrate and and filtered water, i think you can have some success. It will be a bit of a pain to contestantly refill a small reservoir water filter though.

I picked up one of these and havent looked back.
Mikro Epsilon 3-Stage Portable Reverse Osmosis Re-mineralization pH Filter

From time to time I'll mix a pitcher of filtered water into the RO water to get the GH up a bit.
 
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oobydooby

New Member
Yeah I found a small 3 stage ro unit on bulk reef supply for like 75 bucks.. I'm just avoiding the fact that I'm gonna have to buy one...
Anyone have luck with substrate other other than akadama and Ada aqua soil?
 
pbmax

pbmax

Active Member
R.O. is a pain... I have a sink-mounted setup with a 3g tank for drinking water, but using it for changing tanks would add a ton of time to my water change process.

Puget sound area water is pretty soft, as far as I can tell. Amazonia or something like that might be enough to pull the PH down into Taiwan bee territory.

I tried to cycle an amazonia tank with pure R.O. water a long time back...what an epic fail that was. :) I filled the tank with half and half after months of high ammonia readings and it cycled in a couple of weeks (R.O. takes the bacteria out too!).

You really want your water to have some buffering capacity so the PH doesn't swing all over the place anyway.
 
Madness

Madness

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Are you trying to get your ph down and soften the water, more consistently and have it maintain?

I use Malaysian wood in the tank, and peat moss in the sump. I float bags of the moss to help lower the ph and soften the water. In the fall I use large maple leaves that have fallen off the trees and are laying on the ground. I believe that a member on here (Jessy.....) forgot his handle, he has these little pine cones that he uses to lower ph and soften the water.

I have a 250 gal SA tank that I wanted the ph down around 6.5, (my tap is 7.6), it took about a month and the ph started to maintain around 6.5. Now the tank has been up for 6 months and the ph sits at 6.5. Even after I do 25-30% water changes with my 7.6 tap water, the ph still maintains its 6.5.

Just a thought. :) Good luck in your quest.
 
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