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brandon
Guest
the ph in my tank right now is about 7.5 to 7.6, i used ph down to bring it down. any other ideas how to bring it down, and would 7.5-7.6 be to dangerous for fb newts
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jennifer
Guest
7.5-7.6 is just about perfect. I would recommend never ever using those pH up and down solutions, no matter what. Their effect is only temporary, so you end up causing wide swings in pH over a short time, which is worse than an imperfect pH. Newts are usually not too picky about pH, but if you do need to adjust it, use a buffer solution or other approach.
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brandon
Guest
once again to swing into action by answering another one of my questions
. thanks for the help and do u know a more permanent way of keeping the ph stable?
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ethan
Guest
A nylon bag filled with peat moss works very well for softening water and bringing pH down. I've used it for breeding amazonian fish.
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jennifer
Guest
Ethan is exactly right. You can even buy special pelletized peat for putting into aquarium filters. And for increasing pH, calci-sand, crushed coral, or limestone can be used. But really, I wouldn't mess with pH 7.5 unless it tends to shift, or unless you have a species with specific needs. Most aquariums tend to drift toward a lower pH, as the biochemical processes in the tank produce a bit of acid over time.
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william
Guest
also don't forget that testing the pH doesn't give you an indication of the concentrations of the acid/alkali, so there could be small amounts of the acid/alkali actually present
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brandon
Guest
thx guys that info helped ill wait to see if it comes down before i take action
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jennifer
Guest
William, what you say does not make sense to me. PH is a measurement of how much the alkaline ions outnumber the acidic ions in a solution. All water (including pure distilled water) has acidic and alkaline ions in it, but as long as they balance each other out, they are usually irrelevant.
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william
Guest
what i'm trying to say is that if you get some universal indicator and add it to a strong acid or alkali then you'll get a reading of 1 or 14 respectively, then if you add de-ionised water to it the Ph will not change. so you could have a very tiny amount of a really strong acid present which would still read as pH 1
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edward
Guest
Hi William,
There really isn't anything such as a universal indicator that can tell the pH over the entire spectrum. In general all pH indicators have ranges in which they are useful, outside of that range the indicator cannot discriminate between the pHs. The color changes of the indicators are usually due to conformation changes which occur with the addition or loss of a hydrogen cation. In high concentrations of strong acids or strong basic substances the binding sites for the hydrogon cations on the midrange indicators are either virtually swamped or virtually removed which is why there is no sensitivity at those extremes (there are pH indicators that are pretty useless in the intermediate ranges just as the commonly used ones are pretty useless at extremes).
Can you explain how you cannot use the concentration of H cations to determine the amount of an acid or base in solution as knowing one under standard conditions allows you to calculate the other even in extreme concentrations.
Ed
There really isn't anything such as a universal indicator that can tell the pH over the entire spectrum. In general all pH indicators have ranges in which they are useful, outside of that range the indicator cannot discriminate between the pHs. The color changes of the indicators are usually due to conformation changes which occur with the addition or loss of a hydrogen cation. In high concentrations of strong acids or strong basic substances the binding sites for the hydrogon cations on the midrange indicators are either virtually swamped or virtually removed which is why there is no sensitivity at those extremes (there are pH indicators that are pretty useless in the intermediate ranges just as the commonly used ones are pretty useless at extremes).
Can you explain how you cannot use the concentration of H cations to determine the amount of an acid or base in solution as knowing one under standard conditions allows you to calculate the other even in extreme concentrations.
Ed
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william
Guest
i see your right, sorry, if i caused confusion, i was just churning out what i was told about it.