Gh and Kh our misunderstood friend.

[CrystalMethShrimp]

Hey guys,

I have my water near perfect.

used a tiny tiny bit of phosphoric acid to bring my water dwon 7.6 down to 6.4 ph. Finally.

my kH is 3 perfect with a medium buffer ?
and it seems my gh is 10...guess i added too much mosura mineral plus...dang..

[NeyaNey]

Why are you chasing low ph? I've done it myself and it causes MANY more problems then it solves.
Kh of 3 without added co2 relates perfectly to a ph of 7.6.
Using phosphuric acid will cause jumps in phosphates(and possibly algae blooms) plus is just generally harder to maintain.

Crs will thrive and breed in a 7.6 enviroment just acclimate VERY slowly. Much slower than normally recommended.
if you really aim for a lower ph a safer way of lowering it is to use co2.

As far as overdoing the mineral plus, if it's one thing I've learned well Its always test before dosing. If you don't know where youre at then how can you determine a proper dose?

[killer007]

i think GH 10 is okie...
isn't it normally gh is 6 to 9?

[CrystalMethShrimp]

Why are you chasing low ph? I've done it myself and it causes MANY more problems then it solves.
Kh of 3 without added co2 relates perfectly to a ph of 7.6.
Using phosphuric acid will cause jumps in phosphates(and possibly algae blooms) plus is just generally harder to maintain.

Crs will thrive and breed in a 7.6 enviroment just acclimate VERY slowly. Much slower than normally recommended.
if you really aim for a lower ph a safer way of lowering it is to use co2.

As far as overdoing the mineral plus, if it's one thing I've learned well Its always test before dosing. If you don't know where youre at then how can you determine a proper dose?


how much lower will a co2 unit bring it down?
I used about 0.2 ml of the acid and it's stable now at 6.4ph
as for the algae my tank is starting to get about 100 baby snails so they will take care of it i hope.

[NeyaNey]

I've heard anywhere from 4gh to 10gh is acceptable range for crs. But becareful next time dosing :)

as far as co2 here are some great charts an explainations
http://www.thekrib.com/Plants/CO2/kh-ph-co2-chart.html
this is in german or Dutch? But the chart is pretty easy to grasp
http://members.multimania.nl/brieneoord/aqua/gallery/phkhco2tabel.gif
and here's a great simplified article on ph,gh,kh and why using phosphuric acid is generally a bad idea :) it doesn't go into huge chemistry lesson on why but states what I stated about phosphates.
http://www.cs.duke.edu/~narten/faq/chemistry.html