Review of Seachem Neutral and Acid Regulator

[LostInFish]

I have tried this product and it doesn't do what it says it does. It states on the bottle that it softens the water but that isn't true it doesn't change the Gh at all. The Neutral Regulator is a waste of money unless u need to change ph only. And the Acid Regulator says to use prime with neutral regulator! That's stupid because it says on the Neutral Reg bottle that it removes chlorine and chloramine! If that was true why would u need prime lol. Seriously I never graduated high school and I am smart enough to know when a product isn't worth the money. I have an R/O DI Filter but it's a hassle so I'm trying Peat Granules in my filter to achieve a true soft water by changing the Gh. Don't hate me it's not my product it's " Seachem " Does that name mean Liar in Latin lol

[Fishfur]

The main issue is that's it's very, very difficult to change hard, alkaline water to soft, acid water. The hardening minerals in hard water have a buffering effect that strongly resists changing. You often end up with pH bouncing up and down, very hard on fish.

Peat will reduce pH a bit, but it won't remove the minerals that make water hard any more than those products do. It is just so much easier to remineralize RO water to what you want than it it is to change hard tap water into soft water.

[LostInFish]

Ok... R/O water is just so costly to run between filters and running the waste water down the drain don't feel right lol but I understand what your saying. Ph is very tricky it's like the tap water has memory. And it always finds its way back to that memory ph it's very interesting but also very confusing lol

[dalto]

I have never used Acid Regulator but Neutral Regulator is a good way to hold a neutral pH value in waters with low KH. It will also increase KH which will make your water more stable. Prime does more than just remove chlorine and chloramines it also bonds ammonia/nitrite and detoxifies heavy metals.

As fishfur says, there is really no practical and consistent way to soften water that is very hard or make highly alkaline water acidic. In these cases your best bet is to use RO water or switch to fish that like hard alkaline water. The latter being a much easier choice than the former.

[Fishfur]

When I got back into fish keeping, I knew I had hard, alkaline water. And I quickly determined there was no way I could get soft, acid water easily. Landlord won't allow an RO system even if I wanted to have one, and lugging jugs is out of the question. So much as I like some of them, I simply don't try to keep fish that need that kind of water. It's not as limiting as you might think and I sure don't keep cichlids either.

There are some fish that are captive bred that have, over some generations, adapted to water that's harder than what the wild stock came from. Such fish may work out ok, but you will almost never know what water they grew up in either, unless the seller is willing to tell you precisely where they came from.