Spring water PH 4. Best/healthiest way to raise it?

Hi,
I live at Earthaven Ecovillage and I just tested my spring water - PH 4! Several neighbors and my family use spring water that fills a 10,000 gal tank then gravity feeds to our houses and gardens. All the soils in this area of North Carolina are very acidic at around 4.5 - 6.5 PH.

I wondered if we could put brown marble or limestone rocks/gravel in our tank to help raise the PH? Does anyone know if this would work? Heavy metals? Are there health concerns with this idea? I've been searching the internet the last day and haven't found any info or product that would help alkalize large quantities of water, so any creative ideas or input would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!
Travis

is there any reason you would want harder water?

As I understand it safe and Healthy drinking water is supposed to be 6.5 - 8.5 ph. 4 is way too acidic, yeah?

the more important question is What exactly is tainting the water to make the pH that low, and would simple filtering take care of it?
please tell me the heavy metals are in safe limits. most will just kill you outright, or your kids.

soft water is not a taint, it naturally occurs many places and it is the natural state of rain water.

It is not toxic chemicals tainting the water supply but what i think Chrissy means is that metallic contaminants may leach into your water supply since metals are more soluble in soft water than in hard. This means if pure hard water with no contaminants comes into your house, it may still become contaminated enough to concern you if your house is old enough to have lead solder in your pipes.

But your pipes and coffee maker and dishwasher and your hair all benefit from this soft water, soaps rinse more cleanly and you should be using much less soaps than all of us with hard water. While i have to scrub off water scale, you do not. Until now, i did not know soft water wasnt good for everything. I looked it up, yes they say that soft water drinking could be bad but they say it can be bad since it more easily picks up contaminants not because it is intrinsically bad. If this is a concern of yours in your drinking water, buy some filter system.

As far as lime goes, i know it was old fashioned to put lime stones into rain barrels, I do not know if it makes it harder or what. I did not say anything for a few days since i expected someone who was more of an expert to reply. Relax, this is good news, you do not have to run around changing your water at all and even if you buy purifying filters, they will last ten times longer for you than for me because they will not get clogged up with the hard water build up .

It is that nice soft water in Kentucky which makes the whiskey brewed there so good.

Are you using a meter with a probe that consists of two metal electrodes? Or a proper PH pen or a testing laboratory? Those two-pronged metal "multitesters" are in a few words BS- bad science. By definition such a meter measures electroconductivity and not PH. If this is the case, I will test your water for free if you can get it to me. I have a good ph/EC meter, and it costs no money and only a second of time to use it. Soft water is a good thing IMHO.

Below 4.5 metals can become soluble especially if the water is hot. This can make copper and lead solder from older pipes in the system more available. You can raise the pH of water in a tank by adding limestone. It does not take much, a small brick size should do it. The lime stone is soluble in soft or low pH water and will dissolve until until the pH reaches about 6.5 at which point the limestone is no longer soluble. In aquaponics this is done by using crushed oyster shells or limestone suspended in a paint strainer or pantyhose in the fish tank. It helps stabilize the water pH and adds calcium to the water. I looked for a reference and found this article on a site that sells filters http://www.triangularwave.com/f7.htm It does a pretty good job explaining this.