buffers and plants?

[bettons]

I am not sure wether using a buffer and plant its a good idea. Can a buffer (wardley's bullseye 7.0) affect plants to the point of killing them? is this true for aquarium pharmaceutical's proper ph 7.0? I started using buffers a few days ago because my water was coming out of the faucet at 6.2. If any of you guys has any comments on these two products and you have used them please tell me what you think about them!

[amanichen]

Nope, they should work fine together. If your water has lots of CO2 (compare the pH a fresh sample of water with a 24 hour old sample) then plants will help keep the pH higher by using the CO2.

[bettons]

Thanks its that I was looking this at this web page and they were saying things like buffers affecting plants, but anyway, now that we are talking about buffers I was watching the water change video, does your water comes out of the faucet at ph 6.8 or do you add buffers?

[amanichen]

bettons said:

Thanks its that I was looking this at this web page and they were saying things like buffers affecting plants, but anyway, now that we are talking about buffers I was watching the water change video, does your water comes out of the faucet at ph 6.8 or do you add buffers?

Give me a link to this website you speak of.

My tap water in virginia is usually around 7.2, while the tank stays around 6.8.

In the water change video my tank is at 6.9.

[bettons]

uhh yeah here is the link www.aquariumpharm.com/articles/propPH.asp

Its the seventh question.

By the way I was testing the GH of my water and I am not sure if the test came out as one dgh or the general hardness is way too hard but I added one drop and the water didn't turn into any color, then kept adding drop by drop and it turned orange as it was suppose to, I kept putting more drops until I reached 32 drops way out of the chart and the water never turned green as it was suppose to LOL . is it that my water is just super hard or is it something wrong with my test kit?

[amanichen]

bettons said:

uhh yeah here is the link www.aquariumpharm.com/articles/propPH.asp

Its the seventh question.

Interesting. That's not something I'm familiar with, but I'll look into it. What's the KH of your water anyway?

By the way I was testing the GH of my water and I am not sure if the test came out as one dgh or the general hardness is way too hard but I added one drop and the water didn't turn into any color, then kept adding drop by drop and it turned orange as it was suppose to, I kept putting more drops until I reached 32 drops way out of the chart and the water never turned green as it was suppose to LOL . is it that my water is just super hard or is it something wrong with my test kit?

Get a city water quality report, or go to your LFS and have it tested.

[bettons]

hmmm interesting, my KH was 31-34 I lost track of it lol, but I am sure its somewhere between these numbers so my guess is that my GH is around these numbers or maybe higher!

sodium hydroxide is added by the state to raise Ph levels & to reduce corrosives.

[amanichen]

Regarding the phosphate buffer, I don't know whether that plant thing is correct, but you can get phosphate free buffers. People try to avoid chemicals with phosphate due to the fact that phosphate can cause unwanted algal growth.

bettons said:

hmmm interesting, my KH was 31-34 I lost track of it lol, but I am sure its somewhere between these numbers so my guess is that my GH is around these numbers or maybe higher!

KH and GH aren't necessarily connected. Water that has a high GH will often have a high KH, but chemically they're independent of each other.

Your KH is a little low, but due to the fact that they add NaOH to the water, that might provide enough buffering. Just watch your pH to see if the CO3-* and OH- provide enough buffering.

*KH is a measure of the CO3- in the water.

sodium hydroxide is added by the state to raise Ph levels & to reduce corrosives.

It's interesting that they're not using a carbonate buffer.

[bettons]

I was scanning through the report and I Might know why my ph is a little bit low. They add phosphoric acid I am not sure wether this make my water more acidic but since its an acid I think it does. They add it to create a protective film on the pipes to prevent corrosion of pipes and contamination of the water.

[amanichen]

I did some quick online research and the only thing I could come up with that related to the quote on the Aquarium Pharmaceuticals page involved the solubility of nutrient metals (such as iron) decreasing as pH increased, but not as a direct result of using a phosphate buffer.

Additionally, the article that Aquarium Pharm. quotes involves crops, and not aquatic plants: www.cplbookshop.com/contents/C258.htm

For now, I can only say this:

1. Results in crops (land plants) might not be applicable to aquatic plants, due to the fact that a soil system behaves differently than an aquatic system in a chemical sense.

2. I've never seen any phosphate buffers which explicitly say on the label that they can't be used with plants. If it was really that big of a deal, I'd assume more manufacturers would put warnings on the labels. Surely, a 1 sentence blurb that references a farming study, on a web page that that most people will never read, is hardly enough warning.

3. The only negative things I've found about phosphate buffers is that phosphate is food for algae and plants and (because algae can take phosphate up quicker) it means you can get unwanted algae growth in your tank.

I'm not saying it's BS just yet, but what I've found so far doesn't indicate that it's a huge problem.

[bettons]

ok. you really helped me. thank you!