KH just wont stay up

The friendliest place on the web for anyone with an interest in aquariums or fish keeping!
If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.

spiketooth

Aquarium Advice FINatic
Joined
Jan 30, 2013
Messages
950
Location
Okinawa Japan
I did a 35% water change friday arounf 8 pm. Its sunday 1039 pm and it has all ready dropped 1ppm. My tap water only has around 3 ppm. At this rate i would need to do a water change every three days to keep up. This is a 75gal tank. Is there a reason why i am loosing so much KH in a short amount of time? I have 4 bags of crush coral in my tank about a size of a stack of cards little bit bigger. What blows my mind, my 40gal has 6ppm???? I dont get this
 
Why are you concerned with KH? What is in the tank that will be affected by KH? With levels in the 1-3dKH (I assume we are talking degrees, not ppm as you posted), it isn't going to matter much anyway - 1 or 3, it is still low.
 
Is it hitting zero? What is your pH doing? Changing from 3 to 1 is not a huge change.
 
In two day it drops 1 dKH. Even with low KH I should not have to do large water changes so frequently. There has to be a reason why it drops and I am just trying to figure it out
 
No doubt there is a reason. But it might not matter is what I am getting at.
 
It is certainly related but not the only factor. What is your GH? What is your pH? Has the pH changed over time?
 
Ya KH helps "buffer" any changes in your pH but if your pH isn't changing I wouldn't be too concerned. Have you noticed any visual changes in the tank?
 
It is certainly related but not the only factor. What is your GH? What is your pH? Has the pH changed over time?

My ph is around 7.2, out of tap its around 8. I dont know my GH is it never have been a concern to me as its the same as were i get my fish
 
I know test strips are not that accurate but its the only thing i had on hand to test the gh, API master kit did not come with gh tester. It said it was at 75ppm. When i get off of work i will pick up a GH test kit
 
Test the kh to three of my tanks, two with plants one without. 75gal was at 1.5dkh the 40gal was at 8dKH and the 10 gal which has no plants at 3.5dKH and that what i am reading out of my tap. All tanks has the same GH 4. I have narrowed down that my plants might be the issue. the 75 is half soil/sand and the other half is gravel. The 40 is all sand so the only thing that is really different is the plants. If someone knows something else or something i missed please let me know. I really like to get this problem solved
 
If it hits 0... Maybe nothing. The water is still buffered. KH is only 1 measure of buffering capacity. There are a lot of folks who never test it in a FW tank ever and do just fine.
 
Ca ions and other ions picked up by the GH measurement can help buffer the water though not in abundance.

What kind of filter are you running and how long has it been running? How do you clean/maintain it and on what schedule? Excess denitrification can lead to KH drops.

If you are really wanting to raise the KH you can add sodium bicarbonate or other off the shelf alkalinity buffers. Just make sure you understand the affects before adding. It adds complication to things like water changes since you will want to match params as much as possible.
 
I have a sv9000 and a sv5500. Average gph 400 gph. Its on a monthly schedule for clean, i use the water out of my to clean it, been running little over 4 months
 
Excess denitrification can lead to KH drops. .

Thanks fort, it would appear i forgot to clean one of my filters.:facepalm:. i didnt think there would of been so much poop in it, looks like my KH is stable still at 1.5(would of seen a drop all ready)
 
Back
Top Bottom