# Oak leaves lowering pH



## rainbuilder (Sep 21, 2011)

I've decided to give oak leaves a try in my aquarium instead of peat to lower my pH. I always see that people recommend using peat moss to naturally do this, and that oak leaves do the same thing in blackwater aquariums. So I thought it might be a good idea to use my abundance of oak leaves to try it in my aquarium. 

My parameters before the oak leaves were added:
Hardness: 150 ppm
Alkalinity: 300
pH: 8

I will let you know at the end of next week what the results were. Hopefully I will see some promise!


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## Al Slick (Jan 22, 2012)

Awesome! I'm using oak leaves right now but I don't even know how well it's working. How many leaves are you using and in how much water?


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## rainbuilder (Sep 21, 2011)

I have them in the filter of a 42 gallon hexagon and I'm using the space in it that was left for types of filter media like carbon. The filter is a Fluval 205 canister filter. It was probably about 60 leaves chopped up and put in the filter. I'm planning on changing them out every couple of days to keep them fresh. roud:


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## DogFish (Jul 16, 2011)

I did an experiment last fall with 25 leaves crushed and then ground up fine in a coffee grinder. I boiled them into a tea in 1qt of water. The water was boiled down to a pint. Then let the leaves cool and continue to leach for 30min. I had a very dark brown almost coffee colored tea.

Realized just how useless API PH test kits are when a friend tested the same batch with his digital meter. All that dropped the water from 7.1 to 7. Those were red oak leaves and pretty good sized too. I'd think I'd need 10Xs that about of leaves in the same amount of water.

Anyway good luck in your test, I'm very interested in seeing how you do dropping PH.


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## mistergreen (Dec 9, 2006)

When adding peat, driftwood, or leaves, you're adding tannic acid into the system.

Obviously, acid will lower your pH (adding H ions) but that's about it. The salts and minerals that constitute hardness doesn't magically disappear making your water softer. It might change your kH though by breaking up CaCO3 (acid + base = fun).

Your plants consuming the minerals will make your water softer, until your next water change.


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## proaudio55 (Oct 20, 2011)

Big +1 for mistergreen:

Sorry to take you back to highschool chemistry, but a fundamental Ph concept is this: Water is "H2O" . . . right?
The acid ion is H+
The base ion is OH-
Now add that up: H+ with OH- equals H2O

When you're playing with the Ph all you're doing is pulling off an OH- to yield more H+ loose in the water and vice versa. I'd really encourage everyone here to read up on basic water chemistry . . . for your sake and that of your critters!


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## rainbuilder (Sep 21, 2011)

Thanks for the information! I have not reached chemistry in high school yet so I did not know that... I thought that peat moss/oak leaves would help to take the minerals out of the water. I just researched it more and found it wrong. Thanks for the clarification.


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## Kryptic2127 (Mar 19, 2021)

proaudio55 said:


> Big +1 for mistergreen:
> 
> Sorry to take you back to highschool chemistry, but a fundamental Ph concept is this: Water is "H2O" . . . right?
> The acid ion is H+
> ...


 In that case couldn't you do something like electron asis to remove that. I need lower PH to trigger breathing in Plecos and my water js very hard. Even when doing mostly RO water and just some tap for heating.



Kryptic2127 said:


> In that case couldn't you do something like electron asis to remove that. I need lower PH to trigger breathing in Plecos and my water js very hard. Even when doing mostly RO water and just some tap for heating.


Electrolysis** sorry voice text...


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## ichthyogeek (Jul 9, 2014)

I mean sure you could do electrolysis. If you wanted to electrocute your fish...

Electrolysis is complicated and very much depends on what you have in your water. If you just have water and sodium chloride in there, you'll get a bunch of sodium metal and chlorine gas being released onto the electrodes. Or was it hydrogen gas and chlorine gas....regardless, electrolysis isn't really an effective option.

Here's what you'll want to do if you want to:
manage hardness/alkalinity (GH/KH): dilute your water with RODI, distilled, or other water that has 0 TDS.

manage pH: add buffers of some sort that will react with the compounds in the water to bring the pH down/up.

Oak leaves _will_ release tannic and humic acids, but each leaf will have a varying amount of the aforementioned acids. So one leaf might be super strong and release tons of it, while another leaf will only release just a little bit of it.


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## Kryptic2127 (Mar 19, 2021)

I do use aRO and it gets rid of the GH but not the KH I have very hard water it's off the scales even after RO and my water softener. I've heard of using muriatic acid to treat water prior to adding but that kind of scares me and takes 3 days or more. Id like a fix i could do to water already in the aquarium.


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## ichthyogeek (Jul 9, 2014)

Kryptic2127 said:


> I do use aRO and it gets rid of the GH but not the KH I have very hard water it's off the scales even after RO and my water softener. I've heard of using muriatic acid to treat water prior to adding but that kind of scares me and takes 3 days or more. Id like a fix i could do to water already in the aquarium.


Sounds like you want an RODI unit. That should get rid of _everything_ in the water. Then you can either mix with tap as necessary, or remineralize with something else lie Alk/Acid buffer and Equilibrium.

It'd be tough to fix the water already in the aquarium. Best to just do water changes with fixed water and that will gradually make things better.


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