PH vs GH

[Koppriecht]

Hello all

I recently had a utility sink put in my basement so I can get hard water that bypasses the softener. I took a GH reading from the hard water in the new sink and it went from 1 softened to 17 hard. The PH has not changed, still at 8. Do you think it is safe to do a 50% water change when the GH has changed but not the PH?

 

[Mebbid]

If you're changing the water on a tank thats been run off of the softened water... I would say no. Start out with smaller water changes of 10% or so daily and every other day or so dial that up another 5%.

 

[Koppriecht]

Yeah, that sounds right.


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[BBradbury]

Water Changes

Hello all

I recently had a utility sink put in my basement so I can get hard water that bypasses the softener. I took a GH reading from the hard water in the new sink and it went from 1 softened to 17 hard. The PH has not changed, still at 8. Do you think it is safe to do a 50% water change when the GH has changed but not the PH?

Hello Kopp...

Water changes are the most important thing if you want to maintain a healthy tank. However, if your tank is used to small, infrequent changes, you don't want to change out a lot of water immediately. Work up to 50 percent weekly in small steps. But, you should definitely be changing out this much water eventually.

If you don't keep and breed rare fish, then the pH, hardness and this sort of thing isn't important to the health of the tank. What is important is maintaining water conditions that are steady and essentially free of dissolved fish wastes. The large, frequent water changes do this, plus maintain healthy mineral levels for the plants.

B

 

[mrvincent]

GH not supposed to affect the PH, the KH affect it.

Try to keep thoses levels the most stable possible. If you cut 50% 1GH° water with 50%3GH° water, you get 2GH° water.

 

[dalto]

I would do a 25% before starting the 50% changes but I don't think it will matter all that much. The water that has gone through your water softener may have a GH of 0 but it is probably still high in TDS. If you were dealing with truly soft, acidic water than gradual changes would be more important but water that passed through an ion-exchange water softener is different.

 

[trennamw]

Do you know your KH?


Sent from my iPhone with three hands tied behind my back.