How to lower DKH

[mrwizard421]

Tap water is 15dkh? That doesn't sound right.

Just tested again to get to a light shade of green is 12 drops but to get a darker shade of green its 15 drops. Idk what shade of green it should be. Ugh i live in RI

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

There's not much you can do for the alk besides adding acid.

The calcium is fine.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

Tap water is 15dkh? That doesn't sound right.

Some tap water has more alk than seawater.

 

[Singlefin]

Some tap water has more alk than seawater.

Ugh.

 

[mrwizard421]

There's not much you can do for the alk besides adding acid.

The calcium is fine.

There's not much you can do for the alk besides adding acid.

The calcium is fine.

Thanks. Do you have a link where i can look into the dosing for the acid.. I need at least a 8dkh drop in a 55g.. With adding air into the Tank while the acid dosing. Do i need co2 pumped in or can i use an air pump with wooden bubbler

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

You can use muriatic acid or certain freshwater buffers.
Both will lower pH similarly and a lot. There's no way around the pH lowering when reducing alkalinity. You do not want to add CO2. You want to remove CO2 from the tank via aeration.

For that reason, it is best to do it in water change water that is aerated to raise pH before using, or to do it very slowly in the tank (over many days).

The "acidity" (that being essentially negative alkalinity) of muriatic acid straight from the bottle is about 11,000 meq/L.

So adding 1/11,000 of the water volume as this acid will drop alkalinity by 1 meq/l (2.8 dKH).

I would not drop more than 1 dKH per day due to the big pH drop.

You'll need to aerate well after adding the acid to blow off the excess CO2 and bring up the pH.

You can also use Seachem Acid Buffer:

http://www.seachem.com/Products/product_pages/AcidBuffer.html