pH levels

[hoppershaun]

OK guys, I'll not add the pH 6.5. Thanks for the advice.

 

[Guest]

FWIW, even with baking soda, you will need to monitor your PH regularly as it looses its effectiveness in about 24-48 hours after dosing. you have to dose it regularly.

crushed coral on the other hand keeps it's buffering power. I love it. I use it in all my tanks as i have very soft, non buffering water out of the tap.

i took an old pair of panty hose and filled with about 2 tbspns of crushed coral per 10 gallons. added to filter or under ornaments where it would not be seen. works like a charm.

you can get crushed coral from anywhere that sells saltwater fish supplies. make sure you rinse it well.

also, even after rinsing, your water will cloud for a bit and it will fizz when you first add it. not to worry, this is normal.

 

[hoppershaun]

I'll try and get my hands on some crushed coral, but maybe a bit difficult, there's not really a saltwater fish supplier near where I live that I can think of. I'll keep my eye out for one though, if what you say is true about the baking soda losing it's effectiveness after 48 hours. I'd much rather have something that would be acting all the time.

 

[Guest]

my local petsmart and petco both carry crushed coral. you could call around and see if anyone has any. you might even try landscaping suppliers, somethimes they carry it too. just make sure you rinse it really well.


you might even be able to locate a piece of dead coral sold as decoration, which will provide the same effect.

 

[rich311k]

Backing Soda is fine to use. You just need to go slow, figure out how much you need for you tank, and add it to the water when you do you PWCs to keep things stable. I would add a little at a time wait a day, test and then add more. You want to raise you KH slowlywith fish in the tank.

It doesn't stop working. I use it to keep my KH at 5 or so. I add a tps to each bucket of water I add. My tap is less than 2 kh.

 

[hoppershaun]

I'll give the baking soda a try first, see what it's like.

 

[hoppershaun]

Added some baking soda, (a tiny bit), and the pH is now 6.4. The KH is still 0 degrees, but hoping that will change after a while. Quite surprised that the small amount I put in raised it that much, hope it doesn't effect my fish too much!

 

[Purrbox]

This is why it's best to treat your water change water instead of directly treating the tank. You have a lot more control and it's no problem if you add too much to the that water, since you can always dump it out and start over if necessary.

 

[MurfQ]

Unless the product tells you exactly what it's ingrediants are, I wouldn't touch it. Even it if does, it may not be good for your tank. Many of the products that are advertised as setting your tank to a specific pH don't work as promised and often cause other problems.

I'm pretty sure most of those products contain phosphate buffers, which we all know to be the source of a lot of algae problems.

I definitely agree, don't add that stuff.

My tap water also has 0 KH. I've been bringing it up with some product called KH Boost (not sure who makes it) every time I do a PWC. I also spend a good bit of time cleaning algae off my tank. Do you think there's a link? The thought never even occured to me until I was reading down through this post. Perhaps I should look for this crushed coral stuff?

 

[Purrbox]

Did a quick search on that KH Boost product and couldn't find any information one way or the other. Without more information on the product it will be hard to figure out it's contents. If you can't determine for sure what it's using to boost the KH then switching to either Crushed Coral or Baking Soda would be a good idea.

 

[MurfQ]

Did a little searching myself. The product is actually called PH Stabilizer/KH booster and is made by Hagen/Nutrafin. I went to their official website to see if I could find the ingredients. They have safety info and so forth, but no ingredients listed. I just sent them a request, so I guess I'll wait a couple days to see if I get a response.

 

[MurfQ]

Got an email back today from the folks at Hagen. No phosphates in their kh booster. They said it is entirely made of bicarbonate and carbonate. So I guess it's much the same as adding baking soda, except it appears to be calcium bicarbonate as opposed to sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) since they say it increases the kh as CaCO3.