[bardies]

I suspect that the KH is because I put in baking soda. The pond pH was measuring under 8 in the mornings and then 9 at night. I have been bitten by the swing previously and did not to repeat that - also, I read that the buffer might also act to hinder the rise - so a two way chemical reaction. The KH didnt seem to be poor previously (but I was using crappy 25 sec test strips - hadnt broken out the AP test yet), but no where did I see anything about over doing baking soda....and I had only added about a cup or so to 600 gallons.

I am wondering if I cant get a read out from the city. Surely they would have a chemical analysis of their water. I've gone online for water testing and it seems as they all focus on pesticides and other garbage that people will be buying bottled water for - not focusing on heavy metals that would cause issues for fish. Would that be something I specifiy? I can only get results for things they look for, know what I mean?

I've got an old 100 gallon tub we used as a winter grower (worked well!) last year. I think that once I get the bottom drain resealed, it will work great as a mixing tub.

One question though, I realize that I will be chemically messing with the water (but its not like that hasnt happened already at the water company) and although I will be adding a more acceptable product to the pond....will I see buffer problems? I read about folks adding stuff (directly - of course) and adding stuff but not seeing any results as the buffer is 'working', then at the next dosage of stuff, seeing a crash because they used up all of the buffer.

I am hoping that in this case, I will be adding water at acceptable pH levels (or actually, a bit higher - to start off with) that would eventually dilute the original pond water and, over time, cause the over all pond pH to drop to the level of what I am adding. Then, for each water replacement, the water would be pretreated before added to the pond, and there should be no pH change.

I've got hydrochloric acid, I've read is the same as muriatic acid, but that is only the active ingredient. The stuff is designed to clean pool walls. Could any of the 'inactive' ingredients hurt the fish?