# White sand lowering Ph?



## tefsom85 (Jan 27, 2007)

A couple of weeks ago I bought a bag of screened, washed, kiln dried white sand from Lowe's and have it in my shrimp tank. Folks have recommended pool filter sand, which I couldn't find but this stuff looked similar and contained silicates just like the pool filter sand so I am assuming it is basically the same stuff. Tested it with vinegar for suitability - no reaction so assumed ok to use.

The weirdness that I am seeing with it is I *think* it may be lowering my Ph somehow - which is opposite of what I would expect from a substrate. The reason I think this, is I have 2 tanks, side by side which I filled with water at the same exact time. One tank has sand, one is bare bottom. The tank with the sand has a ph measuring in the 5's while the barebottom measures 7+. Tap water also alkaline. One other item implicating the sand is that I originally put too much sand in the tank and ended up scooping some of the sand out and some water and I put in a bucket and set it aside to dump over the weekend. When I got suspicious of the substrate lowering the Ph, I tested some of the water that was in the bucket and it was also very low ph. 

Is it possible that the sand is somehow lowering the ph and if so what is the mechanism for it doing so? I have very soft water so there is little buffering capability. I will attempt to up the hardness with GH booster from GW but still don't understand why the ph would droop. I'm used to my planted tanks ph dropping somewhat due to CO2 but it never goes this low.

Tank specs: Newly setup 10G shrimp tank, air driven sponge filter, ~75F, ~2dKH, ~3dGH. Lightly planted - some java moss, java fern, ech. tennellus. Currently only has ambient-non direct lighting.


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## Edward (May 25, 2004)

Is the sand lowering your water KH?


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## tefsom85 (Jan 27, 2007)

no.. my Kh is low coming out of the tap. I think that the low hardness (low buffering capacity) was allowing the sand to easily lower the ph. Don't know what's in the sand that makes it do that, though. I have since removed all the sand and the ph has stabilized.


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