[gottahavepets]

Hi, would the Blackwater extract be better than the pH adjust down? It is sulphuric acid and the amount I have to use is astounding and I wonder what it could be doing to the water, plants and the fish. I worry about H2S poisoning sometimes. I can't find the kH test locally, so I'll be heading off to Paradise in St. Albert, I know they've got it there. The local store uses and sells the test strips, the 5 in 1's, and they are not accurate enough. No wonder they were telling me there was a problem with my water! I use the hagen test kits and I haven't had problems with them.
Because my water is so buffered it would probably take a lot of peat and driftwood to reverse it, I may need to get a small chunk of driftwood to have in the water buckets and add more to the tank. Both tanks have real driftwood, and I can add more to the bigger tank, it's on the list, and while I have all the gravel out in the spring I can put a layer of peat under the gravel. I have read that in an article in the Krib I think it was, making great substrate or something, I did wonder about the peat being lifted during gravel cleaning though. I guess in a planted tank gravel cleaning doesn't have to be really deep to be effective, there should be a layer of mulm for the plants anyway.