Made a Ph boo boo.

[Farcry305]

So i probably just  killed everything. I added acid to bring Ph down in the 700-800 gallon system        (for the first time) and dropped it from 7.8 where it has been for about 9 months or so to 6.0 in 5 minutes or less  WTF... Stupid mistake i have a pool and im familiar with acid but wow was that stupid. I added it to a 5 gal bucket with water first and then to system. The stupid part was not measuring just poured and said                "ok that looks good"  Hope bacteria and worms will be ok. The fish i can catch easily out back and plants i dont care have alot of seedlings going.

Well lets hear all the bad. I attached a old photo of system.

Thanks

[Cecil Dale Baird]

You might be surprised at how little damage you did.

I have the reverse problem. Alkalinity and hardness is so high it tough to get the Ph down and to keep it down. I try to keep mine at about 7.0. Ground water here is 7.4 and water that sits after liberating C02 jumps up to 8.4

[Farcry305]

Ok 50 dead fish....1 Catfish survived.  "Aint no body got time foe that..I go bronchitis"

[Cecil Dale Baird]

Sorry to hear tbst. I was hoping you'd get lucky but apparently not the case.

[Farcry305]

OK 7 more dead. thought i got them all but 2 catfish left.

[George]

I can relate.  It'll sure make you a little more careful.  

[Farcry305]

So i drained all water and re filled can you believe my filtered tap and unfiltered tap water has a ph of 2.0.. is that normal. My filter is not Ro but filters alot.. Any way that normal?

[Rob Nash]

Personally never heard of low pH in tap water.
could it be the test ? I like regular hydroponics drops over the API test.

[Farcry305]

Rob my Bad  was talking about Ammonia.  Guess thats hard water?

[Farcry305]

So i drained all water and re filled can you believe my filtered tap and unfiltered tap water has a Ammonia of 2.0.. is that normal. My filter is not Ro but filters alot.. Any way that normal? Hard water i guess thats what that is called?

[Jon Paul]

you tap water should not be 2.0.  that measurement has to be wrong.  most tap water is around 7.8 as far as i am aware.  anyways...   I have had similar problems as far as mixing in ph down.  For my 400 gallon system I add 1-2 capfuls of ph down at a time to lower the PH By .07 points. Put a Little PH Down on your tongue and you will quickly realize how bad the ph down hurts the fish.  In my opinion It is best to put the ph down in the sump tank.

3 weeks ago I started Adding Glacial rock dust to my system.  I had been supplementing with calcium carbonate, potassium carbonate, Magnesium mix, and iron.  The supplementation was affecting the PH and causing the ph to drift up.  I'm not using those products anymore as Glacial rock dust has everything that i had been adding.  The first thing that i noticed after adding the Rock Dust is my ph stabilized.  I looked up why this would happen.  The rock dust has lots of atoms attached to the outside.  There would be many different types of atoms but most of them would be hydrogen atoms.  The hydrogen atoms will release and return from the water to the particle, thus regulating PH.  

I attached a file below.  hopefully i did it right.  This is a graph of my ph in my system over 7 days.  At the beginning of the graph you will notice how the PH went up very fast.  This was from me adding 15% city water to top of the system as a test.  After the water was added the PH went up over 12 hours in started  to go back down.   It went right back to 7.02.  It  now only goes up and down by about .03 points per day which is very good.  In my opinion there is no better buffer for a Aquaponics system than GLacial Rock Dust.  Plus it supplements everything that i had been adding and so much more.