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Re: Why does KH drop?



Greg Morin <greg at seachem_com> wrote

<snip> my own text
>What was the KH in the tap water before and after soaking with the
driftwood? I think what you're seeing here is an equilibrium effect.
>The acids are leaching out but also being pulled back in to an
>extent. So after some time there remains a fairly constant level of
>acids from the wood in the water column. When you raise the KH you
>shift the equilibrium of the acids such that most of the dissolved
>acid is neutralized, which has the counter effect of causing more
>acids to be leached from the driftwood to make up for this loss, as
>that happen they continue to react with the added KH until an
>equilibrium is once again achieved at fairly low KH level. So no
>matter what you you do to raise the KH in that tank with the
driftwood you're going to see this effect. A control experiment would
>be to soak the driftwood like you did before in the trash can but add
>buffer to raise the KH and monitor the rate and degree of loss of KH.
>It should be very cose to what you see in the tank (it may be a bit
>slower because there are other organic acids produced in a tank as
>well).
>
>-Greg Morin
>--
>
>Gregory Morin, Ph.D.  ~~~~~~~Research Director~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
>Seachem Laboratories, Inc.      www.seachem.com     888-SEACHEM

Unfortunately I didn't measure kH at the start of the soak, only
at the end. So, yes, your explanation makes total sense to me.
I'll try to seen if I can reproduce it. Thanks for the insight !

- Ivo Busko
  Baltimore, MD

  "Buy a fish, Save a tree !"
  Project Piaba: http://www.angelfire.com/pq/piaba/