acid rain and catchment thread

[dayna]

Its up to 3.48 now so rinsing some of the worst of it off.... hopefully continues to go up.

Dayna

www.E-Z-Caps.com

[randomq]

I can't find anything on Pele's Hair and pets/livestock. Any resources out there? Keeping the dogs in right now as they like to lap fresh rain from puddles. Not sure how it will affect their foot pads, but I know they will lick them if hurt...

[dayna]

Honestly I can't find anything. I've asked some smart science folks I know and their best guesses are try to keep the animals from eating it... but we don't know what will happen if they do. Livestock issues with Peles Hair is not well documented. I think because its not a common thing. It seems to break down fast into the ground, so if you can keep your dogs inside when its actively falling and then maybe the rain will make it not so bad.

Dayna

www.E-Z-Caps.com

[terracore]

Walmart has a big end cap in the store near the garden center. 4 pound "Economy Size" boxes of Arm & Hammer baking soda for $2.44.

[terracore]

I noticed the green staining in the bathtub is the worst its ever been so I took another reading and the pH has dropped to 4.9/5.0 on the digital meter. It looks like the last of our pre-eruption water in the catchment tank has been sufficiently mixed with fresh acidic rainfalls to render it needing an adjustment.

I have about 15 pounds of baking soda and a 10,000 gallon catchment tank (full). But I have no idea on how much baking soda to add to get the pH up a half or full point.

If anybody has any non-thread-hijacking ideas I would love to read them.

[kimo wires]

I've been wondering about this too.
How much baking soda should you add to a 10K tank?
I haven't done any tests of my water but it seems fine to me.
I have unhooked the gutter when the vog gets bad though.
In Keaau

[kalianna]

In mid-May I added two 1 lb. boxes to a pail of water then added that to the catchment and swished it around. Checked it from inside the house the next day and acidity had dropped somewhat. I added a box a day until water became normal, took about 4 lbs. to go from ~5.8 to 7.0. The strange part was that after a month I checked it again and it was back down to 6.2 even though we had disconnected everything to let the acid rain clear the gutters before hooking it back up again. I wish I had measured it before this all started. Could be that it's always been acidic. Does anyone have pre-eruption readings that they've done?

[Kenney]

After testing our water last month, we got a huge white tarp from Amazon and covered our tank and diverted the down spout. (It’s so reflective, I think they can see it from space) It took 4# of baking soda then to get the ph to 7.8. (I hesitated adding more, as I was worried about how the animals would react to all that baking soda. We don’t drink our water, but the animals do) Yesterday I added only one box of baking soda, and the ph tested at 7.7. Apparently keeping the tank covered and no rain for a couple weeks has helped. I didn’t test the water before adding the baking soda today, but it must not have been too bad if only 1# brought it up to nearly ideal.

[Kenney]

I forgot to say that we let the tank fill last night, and it still only took 1# of baking soda.

We have been seeing some really fine “dust” on the white tarp, but no Pele’s Hair yet.

I also noticed tons of really fine particulates in my flashlight beam at night when the air was really bad. We had to shelter in place for a day because everyone in the family was nauseous, had no appetite and had really bad headaches. So much better today with the Trades back!

Mahalo Ke Akua!

[Rob Tucker]

Are you noticing any rust on the galvanized corrugated? This acid rain will corrode zinc plating.