Help With Raising Alkiliniy

[aqualad]

Hi guys, so I've had my tank setup for two weeks tomorrow and everything appears to be going well. Well...almost everything. My alkalinity is somewhat low. Right now it's at 40 ppm or about 2.4 dKH. I want to raise it to about 120-180 ppm without lowering my pH. It's sitting at 6.7. So I may need to raise it a little too. So it appears I don't have a whole lot of minerals in my water. The only carbonate/bicarbonate I have in there at the moment is a piece of cuttlebone for my musk turtle. The tank I'm working on setting up now has a sand/crushed coral substrate, so I believe that will solve much of this but until I'm finished with it I need to figure the current one out. I've read that baking soda will do the trick and I believe that it may increase my pH somewhat. Any advice, tips, or tricks from some of you experienced aquarists out there? Keep in mind that I'm a total n00b when it comes to this. Much appreciated.

 

[jsoong]

Your crush coral is going to look after the low KH. It will gradually raise the pH to 7.5-7.8 and it should stay there.

For you current one, just add a handful of the cc to the tank filter (or the tank itself) and you should be set.

Beware that once you doctored your water this way, you will need to parameter match the change water if you do more than 10-15%. <Small water change will be fine as the cc will dissolve into the water to maintain the pH & KH, but it takes time - 24-48 hrs, so for a big change, the different pH might shock the fish. To avoid this, you can either have a bucket of water with the cc in it soaking for a couple days, or use baking soda.>

Info on doctoring the water here: Beginner FAQ: Water Chemistry

 

[aqualad]

Great idea! Thanks.

I believe the reason my kH and pH are a little low is because I made a n00b mistake the very first day and started off with 4g of distilled water. I didn't have any conditioner right then and didn't have time to aerate so I did what I thought was best.

D'oh! At least the tap that I added was aerated at a minimum of 48hrs and also have dechlor now. Taking that into consideration I shouldn't have a problem with the next setup.

Glad I asked here. Can't believe I didn't think of that. Once again, thank you jsoong for helping a noob out. : )

 

[Lowryder]

What do you want to raise your alk? Most people would kill for soft water, I know I would.

 

[krap101]

I forget which one, but is it gH or dkH that determines the buffering capacity of the tank?

 

[jsoong]

KH - that stands for Carbonate Hardness. <Prob from some German that spells Carbonates with a K ...>
Carbonate hardness - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Carbonate is the most common buffer in water. Although it is possible to have non-carbonate buffers that won't show up in our KH kits.

Incidentally, GH stands for General Hardness ... that is a measure of the Ca & Mg concentration in the water. This is what most people call "hard water", since Ca & Mg binds to soaps & make soap scum ....

 

[taylorodw]

What is a "safe" level of KH for a tank with CO2 and plants?

 

[aqualad]

What do you want to raise your alk? Most people would kill for soft water, I know I would.

Really???

May I ask why? I'm the new fish so I don't really understand the difference and parameters regarding soft vs. hard water.

I believe I had read somewhere that people were trying to harden their water and assumed that the more minerals in the water the better for the center piece of my tank, a beautiful female musk turtle named Rambo. I could be wrong though.

Here's a pic. Sorry it's blurry, took with my phone.

 

[jsoong]

Soft or hard water, it all depends on what you want to keep. Some fish needs hard water, and certainly all snails & inverts needs the GH to build the shells. I would suspect that turtles would need the minerals for the shell too .... but I would defer to any reptilian experts out there.

You do, however, need some kind of buffer to maintain pH stability. Whether that is in the form of carbonates (ie harder water) or some other form of buffer is up to the fish keeper (and the fish).

As for plants & CO2, that is another big debate. pH drops from CO2 is well tolerated by the fish, so one can argue that you don't need any specific level of KH. However, many do like to play it safe & have a minimum of 2-4 degree of KH. As for GH, the plants need a bit of Ca & Mg as well, so you need some, but not a lot ..... 1-2 degree is all you need. <Incidentally, 1 degree is ~ 18 ppm.> On the upper end ... msot plants don't like super hard water (the high pH limit uptake of iron for one) ... so you don't want liquid rock ... but something up to medium hard (200 ppm-ish) should work ....