Gh kh and ph of water

[Chaddlee1978]

Hello. I need help on getting my gh up. My ph is 8.0 and kh is 6 and gh is a 2. My ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate are 0. I bought some sl-aqua black more gh conditioner. GH didn’t go up after using it one time. How often do I need to use it to make gh go up or should I use something else? Thank you.

Chad

 

[Colin_T]

What fish do you keep?

Angelfish, discus, most tetras, most barbs, Bettas, gouramis, rasbora, Corydoras and small species of suckermouth catfish all occur in soft water (GH below 150ppm) and a pH below 7.0.

Livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies), rainbowfish and goldfish occur in medium hard water with a GH around 200-250ppm and a pH above 7.0.

African Rift Lake cichlids occur in water with a GH between 300ppm (Lake Victoria) and 450ppm (Lake Tanganyika), and a pH between 7.6 & 8.5.

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If you need to raise the GH, get some Rift Lake water conditioner. It is mineral salts that will raise the pH, GH and KH.

Marine salts will also raise the pH, GH, KH and the salinity (sodium chloride).

 

[Caliban07]

Seachem Equilibrium should raise GH without raising KH and pH.

 

[Chaddlee1978]

I have just all tetras(neons and black skirt). Will add Julii Cory catfish soon.

 

[Chaddlee1978]

Okay. May get some of that. I did test water again and gh went up from 2 to 3. Yeah, ph, I actually need to go down some but will wait on it. It was at 8 still and kh at 6 too. 0 ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate. Been 0 across the board for 3 weeks in 28 gallon tank with 12 fish.

 

[Colin_T]

If you are keeping neon tetras and black skirt/ widow tetras, you don't want to raise the GH. These fish naturally occur in very soft water with a GH below 100ppm (6dGH).

The KH is fine for them too.

You might want to drop the pH but you will need to do this to the new water before adding it to the aquarium. The new water with the pH buffer (to lower the pH) should be aerated for 24 hours before it is used. And it should be checked before it's used too. You would drop the pH of a bucket of water to around 7.0 and use that water to do small 20% water changes until the pH of the tank is around 7.0. Then you can do bigger water changes.

The fish you have will be fine in water with a pH of around 7.6 but 7.0 is better for them. The main thing is to keep the pH stable and not let it fluctuate.

 

[Chaddlee1978]

Just put water in 5 gallon bucket and put ph buffer in it along with aerator to move the water? Do this for 24 hours? Keep adding ph buffer to bucket until water is at 7.0 and then take 25% of water out of aquarium and put the whole bucket in or just 25% in aquarium?

 

[Colin_T]

Just put water in 5 gallon bucket and put ph buffer in it along with aerator to move the water?

yes

Do this for 24 hours?

yes

Keep adding ph buffer to bucket until water is at 7.0

Add a bit of buffer and check the pH 24 hours later. If it's close to 7.0 then use it in the tank. If it's around 7.6 you can use that too. But if the pH is still around 8.0, then add a bit more buffer and check it 24 hours after that.

You will eventually work out approximately how much buffer you need to add to drop the pH to around 7.0 but it might take a few weeks.

and then take 25% of water out of aquarium and put the whole bucket in or just 25% in aquarium?

Take 25% of the aquarium water out and top the tank up with the water that has a pH of around 7.0.

If it's a big aquarium, you might need several buckets of water.

 

[Chaddlee1978]

Okay. Yeah, May need to get a few more 5 gallon buckets. Thank you.