water chem question
i’ve noticed that seachem also has a product called neutal regulator (or some such) that is a water conditioner but also gives the water a pH of 7. what do you think of that option??
Giancarlo Podio wrote: 16ppm equates to about 0.9 degrees which is very soft. What you want to do is raise KH to about 3-4, to do this, add 3-4tsp of baking soda to the tank. Check PH 24 hours later.
After this, you’ll only need to add enough baking soda to raise KH in the water you replace during water changes. So if you will be changing say 20g each time, you will need to add 1.5tsp of baking soda to the new water.
You can calculate the amount for any other volume: 1/2tsp of baking soda in 20 gallons of water will raise the KH by approximately 1
Seeing you may be having to raise your tap water hardness constantly, I think it is important to have GH and KH test kits to monitor hardness exacly and make sure we don’t make mistakes in dosing baking soda or other products. KH measures carbonates which control PH. GH measures calcium and magnesium which don’t effect PH, however are most important for both fish and plants and usually follow the same trend as carbonates (ie. if KH is low, GH is usually also low). Your ideal GH should be double the KH value (KH3~4 - GH6~8) To raise GH in a planted tank, I usually suggest using Seachem Equilibrium, but there are others too.
While you don’t have fish in there, I would do 50% changes once a week. Once fish are introduced you can cut back to say 30% weekly until the tank becomes stable.
Leave a bucket of tap water sit overnight and test the PH, see if is close to the PH in the tank.
Hope that helps Giancarlo Podio, LMD
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