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OK this may jog some chemistry minded people here!
Has any one ever tried a citric acid buffer?
I’ve been beating myself up trying to get the pH of my aquarium to stabilize at 6.5. The problem is with a bad substrate that contains CaCO3. I’ve been adding mineral acids but they only have a short term effect on the pH and it eventually goes up.
I also tried using CO2 to bring the pH down but it is a monumentally slow process because of the insolubility of CO2 in water.
I did a search of the possible buffers at 6.5 and found only two that were good candidates: carbonic acid and citric acid. You cannot make a stable carbonic acid buffer at 6.5 but a citric acid buffer is perfect at 6.5. Now here is a really interesting compound, citric acid. It will increase KH and decrease pH. The usual candidates for increasing KH (NaHCO3, MgCO3, etc) will increase pH.
OK, the question again:
Has anyone tried citrate buffers?
Has any one ever tried a citric acid buffer?
I’ve been beating myself up trying to get the pH of my aquarium to stabilize at 6.5. The problem is with a bad substrate that contains CaCO3. I’ve been adding mineral acids but they only have a short term effect on the pH and it eventually goes up.
I also tried using CO2 to bring the pH down but it is a monumentally slow process because of the insolubility of CO2 in water.
I did a search of the possible buffers at 6.5 and found only two that were good candidates: carbonic acid and citric acid. You cannot make a stable carbonic acid buffer at 6.5 but a citric acid buffer is perfect at 6.5. Now here is a really interesting compound, citric acid. It will increase KH and decrease pH. The usual candidates for increasing KH (NaHCO3, MgCO3, etc) will increase pH.
OK, the question again:
Has anyone tried citrate buffers?