RE: Muriatic Acid - HCL 34%

["Tranquility Base" <TranquilityBase at NetZero_Net>]

Hi Wright,

About 6 years ago I moved to my present location. I have always had nice
soft surface water with a pH of about 7.3 right from the tap. Life was good.
Then something went dreadfully wrong. The pH in my tanks suddenly went up to
8.3+. I was unable to determine what went wrong until I tested the tap
water. It was about 7.5 but crept up to 8.3 in an hour or two. I called the
water company and they told me that my area had been temporarily switched to
the old wells from the newer Raritan River Canal water plant. As it was only
supposed to be temporary, I dug out several containers of Sodium Biphosphate
I had purchased about a decade ago, when I lived where the water was very
alkaline and mixed my own 7.3 water to keep things consistent. OK I had to
mash it up with a mallet. And yes both algae and plants did super well. My
surface water came back after a month and lasted about 3 days then I was
back on the nasty well water. This situation has now continued for over 8
months and all of my Sodium Biphosphate is finally gone. Of course after a
meaningful discussion with the water company, they told me that they are
even mixing water from another water company that uses chloramines....just
when I thought things could not possibly get worse.

At pH 7.3 I got happy fish and excellent sex ratios. OK, I had to do more
frequent water changes and I could not use peat in my water but that seemed
like a reasonable trade off. I do not know what pH 8.3 water will do nor do
I know how long it will last. Therefore I decided to maintain the 7.3 pH.
But when I went to the store to buy the Sodium Biphosphate I could not find
it locally. One place had it, but it was downright costly. They had several
bottles of what looked like very dilute acid sold under various brand names
such as "pH down" but when I read the label it would take roughly a $6.00
bottle of the stuff to make about 50 gal of water (ouch). Two gallons of
muratic acid cost $6.29 and if my chemistry is even close to right that
should mix a god-awful-lot of water. This is a no brainer.  I chose HCL as
it should not affect the water chemistry very much overall, except to drop
the pH and other people have used it.

I am familiar with pH bounce and the fact that it takes quite a while to get
the water stable. That is why I wanted to get a rough starting point.  If I
need to add acid wait a few hours then add more, this could take a while
unless I get awfully lucky.

Hopefully my surface water will come back eventually, but until then I think
that I will keep my pH the way it was.

As to playing with nasty chemicals, I am afraid that this is a bad habit of
mine.  I find that the more corrosive, toxic, flammable or explosive
something is, the better it works!  Once I get the mix right the acid should
work a treat.  Could I acclimate the killies to pH 8.3? Most likely yes.
Would they do *better* at such a high pH, I have my doubts. Would I have a
problem when and if my water goes back to the original 7.3 pH? Maybe.  I see
not real benefit to raising the pH in all my tanks to 8.3+ and little cost
to maintaining the 7.3 value.

By the way, I usually have reasonable luck with deadly and dangerous things.
I have been playing with such all of my life. I give them a healthy measure
of respect. I on the other hand, I got west Nile virus from a stupid
mosquito bite.  For people on this list, less familiar with nasty chemicals,
your warning should be heeded. Just because I can get away with something
does not mean anyone else should try it.

Peace,

~RJ~

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-killietalk at aka_org [mailto:owner-killietalk at aka_org]On
Behalf Of Wright Huntley
Sent: Saturday, May 04, 2002 12:59 PM
To: killietalk at aka_org
Subject: Re: Muriatic Acid - HCL 34%




Tranquility Base wrote:


>
> I usually adjust a 20 gal fish tank (actually about 17 gal) at a time from
> pH 8.3 to 7.3. I know that I will have to tweak the recipe some but does
> anybody have a clue about how much acid I should start with. For example 1
> ml or 1 cup?


Tiny drops of diluted acid, and a looooong wait before measuring the final
results. Seriously, RJ, don't do it.


I'm curious as to why you should want to do this. We have known for years
that killies don't particularly feel/taste pH (see Scheel's _Atlas..._ for
example). The pH mythology has been propagated by the LFS as it sells a lot
of test kits, and many of them *have* honestly confused the effects of
osmotic shock with ph shock. [Since harder water is often higher pH, putting
fish in lower tds (lower pH) water can easily cause major gill and skin
damage, followed by outbreaks of Ich or Velvet if not immediate death.]

Adding Muriatic Acid to your tank water will cause pH to drop, but it should
quickly bounce back. Add some more, and it will drop again, but will bounce
back again. What it is doing is destroying the alkalinity -- buffering -- in
your tank water (aka KH). When you have bounced the pH enough times, it will
eventually stay down, but now your pH may easily "crash" which can make any
nitrites in your tank as deadly as any ammonia might have been at the higher
pH.

IMHO, the way to do it is leave the pH alone and be darned sure you have no
ammonia/nitrite in your tank. Plants, an active biofilter, and adequate
water changes do that rather easily. If your tds (not pH) is too high, then
dilute with RO or rain water.

Your sodium biphosphate was providing a different buffer (from the calcium
bicarbonate complex of normal water) at a lower pH, which is quite different
from what a strong acid can do.

Unfortunately, many folks felt that phosphate was a limiting nutrient for
algae, so it probably promoted algae growth in your tanks. [That's why it is
banned in detergents, in many areas. It was causing algae blooms in lakes
and ponds.] Stores rarely carry it, now that word of the algae problem is
well spread in the hobby.

The LFS liked that algae-promoting side-effect for it sold a lot of Asiatic
Scale Suckers (mislabeled as Chinese Algae Eaters) and those created a good
turnover in other fish, back in the days when fish were a profit item. :-(

Wright


--
Wright Huntley -- 650 843-1240 -- 866 Clara Dr. Palo Alto CA 94303

Ask of politicians the ends for which laws were originally designed, and
they will answer that laws were designed as a protection for the poor and
weak (...) but surely no pretence can be so ridiculous(...). -- Edmund
Burke, A Vindication of Natural Society, 1756


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