# Longwinded tank setup/water chemistry concerns



## Dentate (Feb 13, 2007)

Hi All,

So, I’m finally getting my 125 ready to plant after a move and I have some water chemistry concerns. First of all, my setup: the plan is for a low maintenance, slow growth, hight temp tank for later discus introduction (once I grow them up a bit and become accustomed to a planted aquarium). Plants that do well in higher temps will be ordered in the next few days, hopefully. Some Amano shrimp, oto cats, and cardinal tetras will be added once I get it planted.

The tank was setup yesterday and contains dual AC70 (to be replaced with AC110s and the 70s moved to my discus tank), timed CO2, 1.6 WPG PC lighting, Flora Base ground layer with coarse sand on top (about 2” in front with 3.5” at the rear). Nothing is planted yet, thus the lights and CO2 are off (well, had the CO2 running for about 20 min yesterday). The driftwood has not been added. Ammonium hydroxide was introduced yesterday to help cycle, which generally raises the pH significantly. Following are the current water readouts.

From the tap: pH-9.0; GH-3; KH-3
Aged water with aeration: pH-7.5; GH-3; KH-3
Tank water: pH-6.6; GH-4; KH-2

I’m assuming the lower pH and KH in the tank are a result of the Flora Base buffering and the increased GH is from either the gravel or base. I tested the gravel with 2M HCl and it came back clean, but assume there could be some mineral leakage nonetheless.

Following are my concerns/questions (please add your personal thoughts to this list, since I have little idea what I’m doing). I assume things may evolve further as the tank ages, but figure getting some thoughts now wouldn’t hurt.

(1) Will pH fluctuations caused by adding ammonium hydroxide (anyone know of a good alternative?) in preparation for fish, or from water changes from the higher pH tap/aged water be a concern for the plants?
(2) Should I worry about the KH of 2 given the CO2? I’d rather not adjust KH using chemicals if I can avoid it.
(3) I’m assuming pH will drop further, perhaps to a dangerous level, after driftwood and CO2 introduction, unless the Flora Base has darn good buffering system… any opinions on this?

Any thoughts you have would be most appreciated! Thanks so much for your help!  

Best,

Robin


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## Edward (May 25, 2004)

No idea why you add hydroxide. Keep it simple, it's easier. Your GH/KH if fine, don't worry, pH won't drop to dangerous levels.


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## epicfish (Sep 11, 2006)

Remember to keep your water level high or else your HOBs will outgas your CO2.


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## Dentate (Feb 13, 2007)

Awesome! Thanks for the responses!

*Edward:* Thanks for the info and thoughts. Regarding pure ammonia, it is a gas a room temperature. Ammonium hydroxide is simple household ammonia (NH3+H2O) except the ammonia can protonated to create ammonium (NH4+) leaving a hydroxide ion (OH-), hence the name. This solution is very basic. It is the only way I know of to introduce ammonia to the tank (but I know very little about this) and would happily use alternate strategies.

Very happy to hear all my measures are fine! That's a big relief!

*epicfish:* Thanks very much for the pointer. Yeah, I'll try to keep her topped up to avoid CO2 loss.

Thanks again for your help. It's much appreciated!

R


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## Dentate (Feb 13, 2007)

More developments on the chemistry.

3/11/07 - GH:4, KH:1, pH: one kit between 5 and 6, other kit 6-6.4.
3/12/07 - GH:4, KH:1, pH: one kit 5, other kit 6 (both at bottom of range).

Any further thoughts? Thanks for the help!

R


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

If you heavily plant the tank, fertilize the plants from day one and add sufficient CO2, they will be growing and healthy, so no tank cycling will be necessary. The tank will cycle - develop a beneficial bacteria colony, whether you do anything to help it along or not, but with all of the plants in there, no ammonia will ever exist long enough to be a problem for fish - the plants will immediately consume it. This also avoids the ammonia signaling algae spores to start growing, so it kills two birds with one stone.

Also, you should find a good pH test kit, that you can rely on. Don't use test strips at all. The Aquarium Pharmaceuticals kit is a good one, but if they use bromothymol blue as a reagent, they all are good ones. That means if the color of the test tube solution goes from yellow at about 6 pH to blue at about 7.2 pH, it will be a good kit. Reading the color is a problem, of course, but unless you get an electronic pH probe, you can't get around the color reading problem.


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## Squawkbert (Jan 3, 2007)

You should think about adding KNO3 instead of NH4OH (in addition to micronutrients, trace elements, K, PO4).

pH should stabilize on its own. especially once you add some plants. CO2 will drive it down a bit, but not a whole lot (as long as you're at ~30ppm).

pH 9 out of the tap?!?!?! Must be a ton of Cl in your water. I'd make a call or two about that. 9 is pretty far off the mark as far as what municipal water systems shoot for.


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## Dentate (Feb 13, 2007)

Thanks for the lightning fast responses! 

*hoppycalif:* Thanks for the info. I'm cycling these filters for placement into another tank, which should arrive tomorrow. Once the AC110s are here (Wednesday), I'll stop adding the ammonia. My plan is to plant heavily; I had forgotten that no cycling is necessary for such a tank, so thanks for the reminder.  I didn't know that ammonia was so important for beginning algal growth, so thanks for the tidbit.
One of the pH kits goes from yellow at pH 6 to blue around 7.5, the other yellow at pH 5 to blue at 7.5. Sounds like at least one might be of the good variety... I couldn't find the active ingredient in the documentation, which is surprising to me. Guess I'll pickup an API kit for good measure as well.

*Squawkbert:* Thanks for your thoughts. Yeah, I bought all bulk macro and micro nutrients from Greg Watson and will start fertilizing with them once the plants go in. I'm happy to hear that things may stabilize with the plants.
I actually checked the water parameters before moving to Redwood City. They claim that the average pH out of the tap was 8.9 in 2005 (most up to date available online)... I'm not sure why it's so high, but apparently that's normal for this area. Giving them a call to find out what the story is might be useful nonetheless.

Thanks for the help and info!

R


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

Water companies try to keep the pH high to avoid any erosion of copper plumbing. So, I'm not too surprised at the high pH. I think Redwood City uses Hetch Hetchy water, doesn't it? If so, the water should be very soft, usually meaning not a high pH at all. So, you might ask what they use to drive up the pH.


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## Dentate (Feb 13, 2007)

Yeah, we exclusively use the Hetch Hetchy water system. The water is certainly quite soft with sodium hydroxide added to push up the pH. At least that base should be pretty benign, apart from increasing the sodium content slightly.


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## hoppycalif (Apr 7, 2005)

There are a lot of planted tank keepers in the Bay Area who use that water. I don't remember any of them saying they have a problem with the pH. Based on that I would ignore it. But, better they respond to the question.


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## Dentate (Feb 13, 2007)

Yes, it would be nice to hear the experiences of some local people. 

My suspicion is that the Flora Base is causing the problem (seems like others may have had similar issues). I have a 10 gallon with a bit of gravel temporarily housing a couple of fish and the KH is sitting at 3 with a pH of 7.6. The 125 has three items that differ from the 10: the gravel, ammonia added, and the Flora Base. Gravel seems an unlikely culprit and ammonia should shift the pH up not down, leaving the Flora Base as the primary candidate. I contacted Red Sea and the representative said, 

"...The reason that your pH is continually falling is relative to the KH level in your water... You will need to add chemicals in order to increase and maintain your KH from your source water. Given that your GH levels are very soft, these levels will also need to be raised."

Well, the KH and pH are stable in the tank without Flora Base... I don’t want to add anything but essentials to the water. I guess the plan is to just move forward and try not to worry about it too much assuming the pH will stabilize with time…


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