Creating blackwater effects with peat

[qieter]

Hi all,

I have a 180 gal that I plan to turn into a piece of the amazon river, one problem that I have now is creating the brown-coloured water, I have driftwoods but they dont release any tannins into the water and I dont want to use conditioners like kent blackwater extract, etc as i do 30% water changes every 2 days and i would need alot of these conditioners to keep the water brown...I am considering using peat pellets and heard that I can get these from gardening shops...but I am not sure on the brands and type that are safe to use for fish...Hopefully someone here could direct me..thanx in advance

Vic

[john2gs]

Hi all,

I have a 180 gal that I plan to turn into a piece of the amazon river, one problem that I have now is creating the brown-coloured water, I have driftwoods but they dont release any tannins into the water and I dont want to use conditioners like kent blackwater extract, etc as i do 30% water changes every 2 days and i would need alot of these conditioners to keep the water brown...I am considering using peat pellets and heard that I can get these from gardening shops...but I am not sure on the brands and type that are safe to use for fish...Hopefully someone here could direct me..thanx in advance

Vic

Hey Vic,

The cheapest way is to get ketapang leaves.....they will turn your water really dark.....but be careful, since they will lower your PH.

You can also go to drfostersmith.com, and try to buy Peat. They are about 10 bucks for a big plastic bag. They also affect the PH though...so make sure you have a good buffering system.

HTH

[qieter]

Antonio,

thanx for the info, I have a few questions though. Why do I need a good buffering systems, if the ketapang leaves or peat lower the pH, wouldnt this be good for the SA fish I am keeping? Or are you refering to a sharp pH drop that can shock them?

Also, where is a good source for ketapang leaves? and do i place these leaves in the tank itself or the filters?

Thanx

Vic

[john2gs]

a good buffering system, will avoid any PH shock. A ph shock can kill any fish.

Peat and ketapang leaves will lover your PH. They usually lower the PH slowly...but Depending on the amount that you place on your fish tank, it may significantly drop PH. You better be safe than sorry...that's why I was saying..you need to have a good buffering system, in order to avoid ph shock.

I forgot then "US/american name" of a ketapang leaf. Once I find out, I will let you know. They can usually be found on our tree surroundings, and just pick the fallen leaves.

You need to boil these leaves, to make sure they dont have any parasites /pathogens/bacteria. You can use the leaves that has been boiled and drop them in your tank. Or you can leave them on your sump, so they can be hidden and not unsightly.

if you cant find ketapang leaves....those peat that you can find at home depot or bought from drfostersmith is a good alternative. You can place them on a mesh bag. Placement of the mesh bag should be in an area where there is water movement (inside filter, near the spraybar, etc).

HTH

[nacra99]

Hi Vic!

Dried Ketapang leaves (malay name) are commonly called Indian Almond / Sea Almond (Terminalia Catappa). They are typically found in tropical climates. Online, you can get them at AB or any good betta sites. You may place them in your filter or straight into the aquarium. This will release some tannins into your water also (to a lesser degree than peat).

Buffering (eg carbonate buffering, kH) is important because it keeps the pH stable. Insufficiently buffered water may result in pH swings which discus don't like very much.

Peat is only effective if you don't have very hard water. The pH and gH drops are not as pronounced with hard water. The cheapest way to get peat is to drive down to your local Home Depot or Lowes and grab some canadian peat. You can wrap some into a stocking and place them in your filter. And yes.. it will make your water brown.

hth
Marc

[qieter]

Marc/ Antonio,

Thanx for the info. The only reason I am looking to use peat is to turn the water brown, not to lower pH...The last time I tested, my water param was pH: 7-7.5 and general & carbonate hardness: 2-3dH.

My question is, will my pH swing dangerously if I use peat to turn my water brown? I certainly dont want this to happen as I want my water param to stay constant above anything else.

I think I will buy a bag of canadian peat from home depot and test it out in my quarantine tank. Could you tell me the brand that is safe to use for fish?
What is AB by the way, is taht a good betta website?

Thanx

Vic

[john2gs]

Marc/ Antonio,

Thanx for the info. The only reason I am looking to use peat is to turn the water brown, not to lower pH...The last time I tested, my water param was pH: 7-7.5 and general & carbonate hardness: 2-3dH.

My question is, will my pH swing dangerously if I use peat to turn my water brown? I certainly dont want this to happen as I want my water param to stay constant above anything else.

I think I will buy a bag of canadian peat from home depot and test it out in my quarantine tank. Could you tell me the brand that is safe to use for fish?
What is AB by the way, is taht a good betta website?

Thanx

Vic

I used LAGUNA peat granules for ponds......and bought it from drfostersmith.com

It was around 10 bucks for a sack.

My arowana and motoro ray.....were not affected at all.

If you don't want to lower your PH by using Peat granules, you may want to buy crushed corals to buffer/stabilize your PH and also place it along moving water.

HTH

[qieter]

antonio,

u said ur aro and rays werent affected at all, so does your pH drop after using these peat granules? if it does, how big of a drop is it? and whats ur pH right now? Thanx!

Vic

[john2gs]

antonio,

u said ur aro and rays werent affected at all, so does your pH drop after using these peat granules? if it does, how big of a drop is it? and whats ur pH right now? Thanx!

Vic

i have a good amount of crushed corals (1 tray of the eheim 2028) to buffer my ph.

My PH didnt drop. It remained at 7, even when I used crushed corals before.

Now w/ discus, I like it crystal clear water............and no longer black water effect...

My ph now is still at 7.

[nacra99]

Thanx for the info. The only reason I am looking to use peat is to turn the water brown, not to lower pH...The last time I tested, my water param was pH: 7-7.5 and general & carbonate hardness: 2-3dH.

.......
What is AB by the way, is taht a good betta website?


Vic,
I years ago, I used a brand called "Sunshine" from home depot and it works great. I'm not sure what brands they carry now (perhaps someone else would comment?) . Just make sure that there are no fertilizers or anti-fungal agents added.

Your kH of 2-3dH is very small. This would make your tank very succeptible to pH swings. I would suggest either an aqurium buffer, baking soda, or like mentoned earlier, crushed coral in your filter tray.

AB is Aquabid ( www.aquabid.com (http://www.aquabid.com) ) It's an auction site for aquarists. You should be able to do a search for "Indian Almond".

cheers
Marc

[qieter]

marc& antonio,

thanx for the info...ill get something from home depot in the next couple of days and slowly add it to my tank while watching my pH and hardness carefully.

Vic

[KIWI13]

Keep an eye not only on your carbonate hardness but on your general hardness GH, cause if your tap water is hard, you will never succeed in lowering your ph and keeping it there.
If your tap water reads a value over 16°gh then I would first lower your hardness by adding R.O. water and then try the peat filteration. If you have hard water and treat with peat, you will have fluctuations in ph and can stress your fish out.
Also with evaporation your water hardens cause minerals are left behind so keep an eye on the GH and if your tap water is soft then be carefull cause you will experience the opposite effect that is your ph will drop real quickly , hense the bufferign is needed. Either way do it carefully and you can also get blackwater extracts that can colour your water for you.

Good luck

Jason

[raglanroad]

Qieter,
All the comments about pH swings being so deadly for fish are unfounded.

Can we have just one single reference showing this to be true? There is so much written about this pH swing death, that it should be very easy to provide one paper ! Not that pH swings are good, but let's not say they
kill all fish ! Absolutely the reverse, they have never been shown to hurt a fish.

As to peat, yes it does lower GH and pH, according to literature. The pH is not drastically affected until you rid some of the minerals and "use up" the buffers by the addition of lots of peat. The peat itself will do all the jobs.

Do not put peat intp your filter. It will make a real mess of your tank. Use a ladies nylon, free of soap. Into a container of water, squeeze the peat until the water is very black. Filter this black extract very well, to remove the particles. Then add the extract a bit at a time to your addition water. Over several WC, your GH and pH will lower.

I will do this today, to give accurate readings on tapwater in the 180 ppm TDS range, then read after peat addition. Back to you later
Dave

[qieter]

Jason & Dave,

Thanx for the info. Hmm, with so much other factors being affected, it doesnt seem to justify adding peat at all. Dave, let me know how it goes, I will only continue to add peat if I can prove that it doesnt affect other water params greatly in the long run. The only reason I want to add peat is to create that blackwater look in my tank, if it turns out this will affect my pH or any other water params greatly then I might just abandon this idea completely.

Vic

[raglanroad]

Quiter, peat will affect your other parameters for sure, and in a good way !
Just be careful not to drop the TDS suddenly, and you are OK.The relationship of the acids involved, with the buffering system you have in the water, might be worth checking into though. Peat also supplies substances that are used for spawning. The more you clean up the particles of the peat, though, the more the water looks slightly yellowed, not darkened much. The staining is said to inhibit some algae also.
Dave

[raglanroad]

Just ran a little test. I just barely got the peat wetted down, squeezed a few times, and the tap went from 230 ppm TDS, to 126ppm.
this shows the remarkable effects of peat to remove dissolved substances in the water.
Incidentally, some people use peat for their hard-water higher pH fish, to lend health benefits. Not sure how this works for hard water fish, but for soft water fish, peat is good.
Dave

[john2gs]

Qieter,
All the comments about pH swings being so deadly for fish are unfounded.

Can we have just one single reference showing this to be true? There is so much written about this pH swing death, that it should be very easy to provide one paper ! Not that pH swings are good, but let's not say they
kill all fish ! Absolutely the reverse, they have never been shown to hurt a fish.



PH shock may or may not directly kill a fish, but it sure does have a negative effect, on reproduction, stress, and over-all health, etc..

I'll give you a couple case studies bro when ph of a lake/river becomes acidic causing PH shock:


http://www.epa.gov/emfjulte/tpmcmaia/pdf/ea-99-6_chap6.pdf#search='ph%20shock%20fish%20study'

http://www.courseworld.com/ggs11/acid.html


In my personal experience, when I used peat before, my arowana actually acted weird. He suddenly kept on jumping on the surface...and swam sideways like a dolphin. After measuring my PH (it is 7 before), I found out that it was 4.8ph. It didnt kill my fish (since I transferred him to another tank ASAP), but i know for sure, that it has a big effect on him

Thats why after that experience, I will never add peat, w/o a good buffering system.

anyways, It doesnt mean that if a fish didnt react negatively ASAP during PH swings, that fish is not being affected/stressed.......

HTH

[raglanroad]

Hi, john2gs.
I could read the second link, will try the first later.
The "Acid Rain" report is not applicable, or even really correct in the assumptions it allows. The reason I can state that, without further qualifications? It says how fish do not spawn successfully at low pH. See the chart, and see if our fish (some of them) do not come from water lower than this ! This report seems a general type of info paper, put out by a high school. Really, fish do not all stop reproducing at 5.5, and die by suffocation at 5.0 !!
Yes, some life forms are better suited to higher pH and hardness. Some are suited to entirely different conditions. I think this paper refers to Great Lakes fish and organisms, though, so it has little to do with our fish.
And the acid in acid rain is not humic or fulvic acids. What type of acids are important to our discussion, not just any acid. My guppies acted really weird on LSD too. :) Not all "acids" are created equal.
Even the paper mentioned that the sulphuric acid converts other materials such as aluminum. This is definitely not as a result of pH "shock". It is called being poisoned. Not to mention all the salt runoff after winter.

john, we have been schooled to think pH shock kills fish. With all the effort made to get us to believe this, where is the aquarium hobby or aquaculture study to back this up? Not one available, cause it doesn't happen!
Dave

[john2gs]

Hi, john2gs.
I could read the second link, will try the first later.
The "Acid Rain" report is not applicable, or even really correct in the assumptions it allows. The reason I can state that, without further qualifications? It says how fish do not spawn successfully at low pH. See the chart, and see if our fish (some of them) do not come from water lower than this ! This report seems a general type of info paper, put out by a high school. Really, fish do not all stop reproducing at 5.5, and die by suffocation at 5.0 !!
Yes, some life forms are better suited to higher pH and hardness. Some are suited to entirely different conditions. I think this paper refers to Great Lakes fish and organisms, though, so it has little to do with our fish.
And the acid in acid rain is not humic or fulvic acids. What type of acids are important to our discussion, not just any acid. My guppies acted really weird on LSD too. :) Not all "acids" are created equal.
Even the paper mentioned that the sulphuric acid converts other materials such as aluminum. This is definitely not as a result of pH "shock". It is called being poisoned. Not to mention all the salt runoff after winter.

john, we have been schooled to think pH shock kills fish. With all the effort made to get us to believe this, where is the aquarium hobby or aquaculture study to back this up? Not one available, cause it doesn't happen!
Dave

bro, hopefully you'll be able to read the first link.

Anyways, I dont disagree with your thoughts...and their thoughts.

Im just following the norms.....plus of course of my personal experience (aro started acting weird due to the ph drop). Thats why Im kinda a believer...

thats all...

[KIWI13]

I beg to differ on peat lowering GH drastically simply cause I have a tap water reading of 18°GH and the peat hardley effects it when added to it.
Peat would drop the KH which is carbonate hardness cause KH is linked to PH and generally low ph has a low kh value too.
However if you have soft tap water then when peat lowers the ph/kh its normal for the GH to drop too. But if you have very hard water, you need R.O water to drop the GH first before you go about fixing Ph/Kh values.

Just my humble opinion

Jason

[qieter]

hmm it seems the best way to find out would be to try out a lil peat in my tank and observe all my water param carefully...once i got my driftwood and plants sorted out in the tank, ill go out and try the peat..thanx everyone

vic

[john2gs]

hmm it seems the best way to find out would be to try out a lil peat in my tank and observe all my water param carefully...once i got my driftwood and plants sorted out in the tank, ill go out and try the peat..thanx everyone

vic

yup......thats the best way to do it.

Everybody has different results....since we dont have exactly the same water parameters. Plus of course, even if we have the same kind of fish, they will still have different reactions.....

its really hard to play god.......and keep on manipulating our lil tanks....for our own satisfaction.....

anyways, good luck bro, and keep us updated....

[raglanroad]

This may be helpful. When I dosed tapwater at 230 ppm with peat, and then poured it through a wad of filter cotton in a syro cup with holes, the result was about 126 ppm. When later I used the same 126 water and squeezed more peat into it, from the same ball of peat, the resulting water was 168 ppm. I did not filter it the second time.
This indicates that the peat can relase back some salts. I filtered the water better just now, and found that the second batch was still in the 168 range. If I had used a fresh ball of peat the second time, the results may have been different. Will let you know what happens with better testing.
In any case, this will let you know that peat or other things like the leaves do major changes to the water.
You may want to avoid packaged blackwater products in general, as they may contain phosphates and other undesirable ingredients. And cost a bundle.
Dave

[john2gs]

In any case, this will let you know that peat or other things like the leaves do major changes to the water.
Dave

true....