Ram-Ashwin@cs.yale.edu (Ashwin Ram) (05/09/88)
In article <334@unisv.UUCP>, vanpelt@unisv (Mike Van Pelt) writes: > I quit using copper after someone in a fish store told me about how > clown loaches will rid a tank of snails in nothing flat. That was a > number or water changes ago. (Boy, those clown loaches go through > snails like Sherman through Georgia!) > > Come to think of it, though, my last attempt at pots & peat plugs may have > been while I was dumping enough copper in the tank to turn the fish green > in an (entirely futile) attempt to control the snails. I read the following trick to get rid of snails (haven't tried it myself since I've never had any) -- place a lettuce leaf baited with food pellets in the tank. The next morning you'll find your snails peacefully sitting on it waiting to be removed. > One thing that might be relevant -- San Jose has extremely hard, alkaline > water. I'm using phosphoric acid to neutralize it (the heck with those > little bottles of 30% stuff you get at pet stores; I got a bottle of 90% > at a chemical supply house. I've used about half of it.) which should also > be good for the plants. A friend of mine once told me that he preferred to > use hydrochloric (VERY carefully, and let the water stand for a couple of > days) to get it near pH 7 then fine-tune with phosphoric. Any ideas here? > Should plants have soft water? Most plants don't care much, though some do. Strong acids (such as hydrochloric acid) and salts of strong acids aren't recommended for this job because they have very little buffering capacity. A little bit of dilute HCl will certainly lower your pH, but as soon as it is exhausted the pH will tend to bounce up by a considerable amount. That's why weaker acids (such as phosphoric acid) are used. Salts are better than acids. E.g., phosphoric acid isn't the best way to lower pH either. It will neutralize the alkali, but it doesn't buffer the water as much. Sodium biphosphate has better buffering capacity. In your case, I'm not sure if you need it though. Does your pH tend to rise slowly but continuously, or is this only a water-change-time problem? Peat bags may help both pH and hardness, although I don't really know if they'll handle the extreme conditions in San Jose. -- Ashwin.