How much do I need to worry about Total Alkalinity (KH)?

[Rocket2001]

I was just wondering...my water parameters have been fine for quite a while..in both my tanks but i have noticed lately that the Total Alk (KH) has slowly been dropping into the "LOW" range at 40ppm..I realize home test strips are not that accurate but i use them to give me a "heads up" to potential problems...so is this a potential problem?
Also in the future I wanted to keep blue rams and cardinal tetras, I hear they are both very fussy about water parameters and wonder if this will pose a problem in the future if its going to continue

 

[BrianNY]

Hi Rocket2001. I'm a little confused by your terms total alk and KH. KH or carbonate hardness has a bearing on ph stability.

There's an exceptional article in the articles section by Mark Lehr on the topic. You should read it and then come back and ask any questions.

 

[amosf]

The alkalinity/kH is fairly important to pH stability. You want at least 80ppm IMHO. There are various ways to raise the kH... Crushed coral for example...

 

[Rocket2001]

Hi Rocket2001. I'm a little confused by your terms total alk and KH.

Brian I'm only going by what it says on the chart with my test strips "Jungle brand" . One of the five tests is for "Total Alkalinity (KH)"
By the way pH has been stable at the 7.0-7.2 range. I will read that artical you suggested and follow up.

 

[Rocket2001]

Yes that was a very informative article..things seem to make sense now..my Oscar is a very dirty fish thus the dirt pulls the carbonate out of the water and there by lowers KH and potentially could destablize pH. I do very regular water changes and clean the filter media so i'm wondering why I'm having a problem. but I belive as "amosf" said "crushed Coral" may solve the problem

 

[Rocket2001]

Ok...after all this..i just tested the water again..and in my community tank the KH is down to 10ppm...and after looking at the tank and wondering what going on..I remembered one change I made recently..I added an live plant which I never had before i also added some plant food..could this the cause of the drop in KH?

 

[TankGirl]

No, plants are not going to suddenly cause KH to drop - their decaying leaves over a period of time might influence things, but that takes a while.

The simple solution (assuming your KH is higher out of the tap) is to just do more frequent water changes. CC in your filter will also help, and is a pretty simple thing to do. I'd consider it on any mature tank.

 

[ChileRelleno]

Some CC will solve your problem...
We had problems with VERY low PH (5 and lower 8O ) due to extremely low levels of KH, our KH was 1 or 15ppm, this affected our tanks ability to maintain a PH for any length of time and affected our tanks ability to cycle due to being insanely acidic.
We added crushed coral in our filters (in sachets) and our problems disappeared.
Currently our water parameters in all our tanks are;
PH 7. , KH 50-60+ppm, GH 200+ppm, NH3/NH4 0ppm, NO20ppm, NO3 10-40 (readings vary)

 

[BASSNMAN]

Do you have any wood in your tank? I recently added 2 nice pieces of malaysian drift wood to my 50 gal. In 2 days, my ph dropped from 7.2 to 6.8 and GH from 26 degrees to 16. I took one piece out.

 

[ChileRelleno]

I have two pieces of wood in my 75 gal but none in my other tanks and the KH was still testing at 15ppm, hence it was irrevelant to my particular situation. Pure local water chemistry.

 

[Rocket2001]

no wood in my tanks...one tank is about 5 months old and the other is a moved tank that was established...from all i read here i think the CC added to my canister filter might really be the way to go

 

[BrianNY]

Yep. You get the jist Rocket

 

[SerLunchbox]

I have two pieces of wood in my 75 gal but none in my other tanks and the KH was still testing at 15ppm, hence it was irrevelant to my particular situation. Pure local water chemistry

exactly ... wood helps some tanks but it isn't a fix all the time. Definately try crushed coral in your tank. My KH is up about 10 - 12 degrees. My pH is a constant 7.6 and i have angels breeding. I guess it si all relative to what your current water conditions are.