Hard Water / Lenny
Well, lets see what the 48 hour baseline tests turn out to be on your tap water before making any assumptions about your final baseline figures.
As far as changing your water, NO… there is no need to change anything with your water.
Your KH is a little low, but you can use Baking Soda or other source of carbonate to raise it, if we find there is a need, but as long as it’s staying between 60-80ppm (3-4 dH) before you do a new PWC, then it will be fine. As the fish get larger, this will have to be tested on a regular basis right before each PWC to make sure the KH level is staying high enough. If the KH gets too low, it can lead to a pH crash but this does not seem to be a problem yet.
Back to your tap water baseline… Quite often, the pH, KH and GH will change.. most often the pH, during the 48 hour baseline tests. These change due to the buffers added by your water utility to raise the pH while the water is in the pipes to help prevent or slow down corrosion. As these buffers are exposed to air and light, they’ll diminish in effectiveness (that’s why many chemicals, medicines, etc., are kept in dark brown bottles and kept sealed).
Since your GH appears to have gone up, it could be due to the salt in your tank. Are you adding salt? I know I should remember but I help in several forums and I quit trying to remember each tank’s situation a long time ago. If you do have salt in your tank, that will raise the hardness a little and depending on how much salt, if any, that could be the reason for your increase. What else do you have in the tank that could be raising the hardness? Rocks, coral, etc.?
Do you have live plants? I’m curious why your nitrates went down from 5ppm to 0ppm. Did you do any PWC’s?
No need to post all of them other computations. The main two used are ppm (mg/l) or dH. While the exact figure is 17.9ppm per dH, I simply use 20 to get a close enough approximation… so 80ppm KH becomes 4 dH… 60ppm becomes 3 dH, 220ppm becomes 11 dH. Goldfish and many other fish actually like and need harder water.
Lenny Vasbinder Fish Blog - http://GoldLenny.blogspot.com (Links to any articles referenced in above reply are listed on the right side, alphabetically under Labels and also under Archives by Year, Month)
Category: Philippines Internet Koi Society
