# KH



## fraynes1 (Mar 4, 2005)

*KH and Phosphates*

What should the proper KH be in a planted aquarium? I don't have co2 YET and my new lights should be coming in at the very latest next Wednesday to give me 2 watts per gallon.

My kH is between 70-80ppm, if I understand this correctly I am on the borderline of a ph crash, or is it low GH that causes the ph crash. My ph is now 7.4.

Does KH lower with the more plants you have?

How do I raise it if it needs to be raised?

Do I have to check GH? I haven't checked it in a while but it showed slightly hard-moderately hard, the last time I checked it.

Also, have taken a sample of water to lfs and they checked for phosphates and said it was off the chart how do I lower this, I tried looking and every site said this was the easiest thing to get rid of but didn't say how to get rid of it. My water is very cloudy and the lfs guy said it was due to organic material which is raising my phosphates is he correct? If I lower the phosphates will my nitrates go up, the highest I have ever had them have been 5 ppm since I have had the tank in Nov 04.

Thanks a bunch, this site has been very helpful, the two lfs in town aren't really knowledgeable regarding having a heavy plant set up and have given me very bad advice. They tried to sell me a hagen co2 injector for my 75 gallon aquarium and it was only for a 20 gallon.

I have to check weekly to get plants the one lfs doesn't even have names for them listed and the employees don't know what they are and the other one gets them sporadically and am doubtful that them name the plants correctly. So I get about 1 or 2 plants per week on average.
Ammonia 0
Nitrites 0
Nitrates 0
ph 7.4


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## AaronT (Apr 26, 2004)

Your KH is just fine. You are no where near a crash. Plants do not use up KH either, unless they are starved of CO2. pH crashes are really far and few between.


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## trenac (Jul 16, 2004)

Yes, your KH is good. You can go down as low as 55ppm (3.1 degrees) and still not have a Ph crash. PH crashes are not common but they can happen. Your KH/GH should stay within a couple of degrees of each other.

Phosphates (P04) can be lowered by using Phos-guard, better yet plant heavily with fast growers (they will uptake P04) and do large weekly water changes. No, lowering your P04 will not raise your nitrates (N03). You need to keep a ratio of 23 to 1 of N03/P04 (Exp: 10ppm N03/0.4ppm P04).

Instead of buying 1-2 plants weekly from your LFS, I would suggest trying are sponsors for a plant package. Adding as many plants as possible at one time is the way to go, this will help keep things more stable. Someone here may be willing to give you some plants to help out.


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## fraynes1 (Mar 4, 2005)

Thanks trenac, do you have any suggestions for fast growers for my tank?

I've been looking for some dwarf hairgrass but can't seem to find any, also if you have a "grass" or heavily planted tank with a fair sized fish load how do you clean the substrate or is the fish waste used as fertilizer?

Also, would like to order some plants but shipping to canada is almost impossible as most won't ship here


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## AaronT (Apr 26, 2004)

You don't clean the substrate by churning it up as you would in a non planted tank. Just use the siphon to skim debris off of the top and you'll be good to go. Dwarf hairgrass is not a good beginner's plant. Here's a list of some fast growers:

Hygrophila difformis or just about any Hygrophila for that matter
Water Sprite (Latin name eludes me at the moment)
Hornwort
Limnophila sessifloria (Asian Ambulia)
Myriophylum mattogrosense
Ludwigia repens
Java moss (not super fast growing, but a good nutrient hog)


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## fraynes1 (Mar 4, 2005)

Thanks for the help most of the sites that are sponsored here don't ship to Canada. I will have to make due with what comes into my lfs. I just planted two big ludwigia repens and hygrophilia polysperma plants (at least 10 inches high)

Just received my 110w all-glass cf today, what a difference! All I had was the 32w that came with my tank. Next month will have to buy new fluoresant bult to replace the 32 w with 40 w for at least 2w/gallon.

Do high Phosphates make water cloudy? Mine is very cloudy and i'm hoping that my plants will grow quicker to clear it up. I have an aquaclear 300 and fluval 304 on 75 gallon so there is lots of filtration.


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## thaerin (Dec 12, 2004)

You can always try Aquabid. There's quite a few people who will ship to Canada and the plants are almost always a good deal, lots of good quality plants for cheap. When your looking at the list of auctions, it has a symbol after name to say where they can ship too. You'd want either the Canadian flag, half USA/Canadian, or the little globe (international). Not sure what the shipping would be for that though.

On a side note, I do have quite a bit of java moss on hand. I don't know if there is any paperwork that would be needed to send it from here in the States to you in Canada, but I'd be happy to send ya some.

Or you can put an add in the for sale/trade section. Plenty of canadians on APC that could send you things. A lot of times they'll send you plenty of trimmings from their tank for just the shipping cost.


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## fraynes1 (Mar 4, 2005)

Thanks thaerin, I had some java moss that I put in my tank (about size of a golf ball), I bought it the first time and only time I seen it at the lfs, and put it in my tank. My 1 SAE and 3 Angels made a meal of it in about 3 days.

I saved what I could and have it in a glass in the window changing 100% of the water every 2nd day with tank water. I will put it in when I have a whole bunch of it so it can keep up with the 3 little piggies. Right now they are making a meal out of the new hygrophila polysperma plant now. Hopefully with the new added lighting it can keep up to their eating.

I will check out aquabid thanks a bunch!!


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## thaerin (Dec 12, 2004)

Ahh yes, there is that problem. Look on the bright side, you know they're getting their veggies.


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## fraynes1 (Mar 4, 2005)

Ok just did water tests don't have phosphate test though, water is still extremely cloudy and I did a 30% w/c earlier this afternoon.

I did add 30 ml of hydrogen peroxide (I read to use 50ml/100L but afraid to use that much to clear up water anybody tried this?)

Using aquarium pharmaceutical test kit
PH 7.2-7.4
Ammonia 0
Nitrite 0
Nitrate 5ppm

using hagen test kit
gh 4-5 drops=slightly hard convert to DH =5.04
kh 6 drops= associated with low ph, converted to DH=3.36

My kh has lowered over 1 full point since 2 days ago.

Cause for concern?


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## thaerin (Dec 12, 2004)

fraynes, was this drop in kH before or after you added hydrogen peroxide?


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## fraynes1 (Mar 4, 2005)

after, will that cause a drop?


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## thaerin (Dec 12, 2004)

I don't know actually, if it did or not.
My grades in chemistry sucked so I couldn't figure out whether the H202 (hyrdogen peroxide) reacted with the carbonates that make up kH and or not.
When it breaks down, H202 becomes water and and a free floating oxygen molecule, which if it doesn't react with anything else, joins up with another oxxygen and becomes the the oxygen fish can use,so the fishies normally love it.

It's the only thing that sticks out to me. I don't know for sure, but I think kH for the most part stays fairly stable. If it dropped that quickly (1 full point) people with a low kH would have to bump it back up every few days to avoid pH spikes when it gets low enough.


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## fraynes1 (Mar 4, 2005)

I read a post I believe on this site somerwhere where the guy added 50ml/100L and it cleared up his tank, if I add this will it hurt anything?

Also, I added 30ml yesterday 26 mar 05, do I have to take that off of the total if I want to add 50ml/100l?

As for the lower KH, might that be that I have added 3 large plants (ludwigia repens and hygro polysperma) in the last week? Not sure if plants lower kh or not. Also thaerin got your post regarding CO2, I think I will try diy for a month or two to get the plants going, my wife works at grocery store and gets damaged sugar all of the time for nothing, so it's a little less money right now.


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## thaerin (Dec 12, 2004)

Honestly, I don't know. I'm just going from what I've read. I searched the algae forum and googled hydrogen peroxide aquarium.

As for the plants lowering kH, it is possible for them to do so. Especially plants adapted to hard water conditions, they can break apart the carbonates that form kH (I think it's kH and not gH, I might be wrong) to get at the co2 within. But ludwigia repens and hygrophilia polysperma aren't that type I don't think (I have some hygro myself). And if the tanks that are half full of anachris (a hard water plant) doesn't drop the kH by much, I don't think it's a big problem.

Best idea on both topics, a topic on H202 use in the Algae forum and a topic on Why did my kH drop so much in the...maybe the Fertilizing section. The experienced people are more likely to see them there isntead of imbedded in a different topic.

As for the co2, whatever works for ya =) If you can get the stuff even cheaper than normal than it's all good.


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## fraynes1 (Mar 4, 2005)

Well thaerin, I think I might have found out part of my problem! I hadn't cleaned the fluvals intake and outtake pipes for quite some time and they were FULL of crud. It turned the water in a 5 gal. pail almost chocolate in color.

My lfs store checked my phosphate level and it's near 10 ppm! He said he had never seen them that high before, I have lowered my lights down to 9 hours per day for last two days, I have noticed that all of my plants are taking off though even throught the cloudy water. My lfs ordered phosguard from seachem for me should be hear early next week hopefully  

I think the crud in the tubes were what caused high phosphate levels. Did 10% water change as well. My lfs store said do daily 10% water changes until I get phosguard, sound right?


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## glenhead (Jan 29, 2005)

Changing 10% of your water daily will verrrrry slowly drop your phosphate levels. Changing more will drop it faster. Your call! If you have Phosguard coming, it will work more easily than water changes.

The Phosguard does a nice job of reducing the phosphates quickly. Be prepared to change the load of Phosguard every three or four days, though. It exhausts fairly quickly, too. I used it to drop the phosphates in my 20-gal livebearer tank from off the scale (20+ ppm, I started with phosphate buffers before I went planted) to less than 1, and it took three batches (a cup of Phosguard per batch) and about a week and a half.

HTH


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