₦airaland Forum

How to Neutralize Acidic Well/Tap Water to prevent death of catfish

1). Test your well water first, for at least: pH, acidity or alkalinity.

Use soda ash or Calcium Carbonate or magnesium oxide for very low pH.

What causes acid water anyway?

Well, common causes for acidic water are from acid rainfall. Mostly due to atmospheric carbon dioxide, and we’re seeing more acid rainfall because he CO2 levels are increasing.

It comes from other airborne pollutants as well – coal burning, fossil fuels, vehicles – run-off from pollution which is another way it can happen.

But mostly it’s from the rain. So pure water has a pH of 7 which is neutral.

However, natural unpolluted rainwater actually has a pH of 5.6.

So it’s naturally a little acidic. The acidity of rainwater comes from the natural presence of carbon dioxide, in some cases nitric oxide, and some sulfur dioxide from coal burning.

CO2 is present in the greatest concentration in air, and therefore contributes the most to the natural acidity of rainwater.

The rain comes down, and eventually gets into the groundwater where where we have our wells, where you pull out the water from. If you groundwater is in an area where the natural rock or fractured rock is limestone, or maybe sand, or some other mineral, it has a huge effect on whether that water would be acidic when you pull it out.

For instance, if you’re in an area where the groundwater is sitting in limestone, well it’s getting neutralized right there.

Acidic water dissolves some magnesium or calcium, so you have hard water but no longer acidic, corrosive water.

But if you’re in an area where it’s granite, sand, or some other mineral that isn’t going to contribute pH buffering into the water, then the water often comes out of the ground really good quality but it’s acidic.

So we see this very commonly.

What to do?

Well, fortunately, it’s very easy to fix. The common systems we use to treat low pH are calcium carbonate.

There are different grades of it. The type that we recommend is this high purity kind that just add some natural calcium into the water.

That works if your pH is 6 and say 6.9, which is the most common pH we run into with some customers.

Sometimes the pH is less than 6, between 5 and 6. Then we’ll use a blend of calcium carbonate and magnesium oxide.

The first thing to do is to figure out what your water chemistry is.

Do a simple water test and you want to know at a minimum, what the pH of the water is. Again, that’s a scale from 1 to 14. Lime juice has a pH of 2. In other words, if its acidic, it has a low pH.

Vinegar is acidic, that is a low pH.

Then if is alkaline substitute like baking soda, it has a high pH.

So you want to know what the pH of the water is, what the hardness is, what the total dissolved solids are, and the alkalinity.

It is good to have those 4 things tested at a lab or you can test it yourself.

It’s often a good idea to at least do one pH test on site because the pH can rise.

For instance, say you want to get your water tested and you filled the sample three quarters of the way so there is some air in it.

Then you take it to the lab, and they let it sit around for a day before they test it, the pH will be a little bit lower because one of the causes of low pH is dissolved carbon dioxide in the water.

The dissolved carbon dioxide creates carbonic acid.

If you were to spray this water in the tank, let it sit around, or put it in the glass, it will naturally lower the pH.

So it’s very important to do at least one pH test at the site. It’s easy to do and you can also have a test by a lab.

Those are the main things you want your water to get tested for.

There are some cases when Calcium carbonate or Magnesium don’t work well.

That’s why I’m going to talk about this next one, which is soda ash.

Soda ash has done really well too.

If your pH is less than 5, say 4 or 4.5, then you got to add a lot of magnesium oxide or calcium carbonate because it doesn’t work that well at that low pH.

You have to use a lot of magnesium oxide or calcium carbonate to get it to work but your water is then hard.

It adds a lot of hardness to water.

The other thing is, it doesn’t really work that well, we found.

In the beginning, the pH is a little high and then after a while, the pH drops or if you use a lot of water during the day, you can get alot of acid water.

So generally if your pH is the less than 5, we recommend soda ash.

Soda ash is sodium carbonate, a food grade sodium carbonate.

Sodium bicarbonate is baking soda and sodium carbonate is pretty much like baking soda.

It looks like baking soda but it’s a special potable water grade.

It’s a powder and basically, you mix it up with warm water and pour it into a solution tank which might be 15-30 gallons in size.

FOR YOU TO TREAT YOUR WATER YOU MUST FIRST KNOW YOUR WATER PH READING.

NOTE: SPECIFIC WATER PH READING REQUIRE THE SPECIFIC TREATMENT YOU USE, THAT’S THE BENEFIT OF HAVING YOUR OWN DIGITAL PH METER.

YOU CAN ACTUALLY TEST YOUR WATER YOURSELF, NO NEED TO GO TO A LAB.

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