Tropical Fish Forums

[NorthernMonkey]

Hi all, I'm new to the site...so if I'm posting something thats already been discussed please let me know.

I have a 50 gallon planted community tank with Cory, Otto's, Barbs, Danio, Dwarf Gourami, Dwarf Angel and Discus.

I'm striving for certain water parameters in the tank aimed primarily at keeping the Discus happy with the other fish adapting accordingly.

My current water paramters are:-

pH = 6.2
GH = 12
KH = 3

My NA2/NA3/Chlorine levels are fine.

I'm aiming for the following:-

pH = 6.5
GH = 4
KH = 4+

Currently I have a sand substrate, plants, bogwood and rocks accompanying the fish in the tank.

Filtration wise I have a Fluval 205 with polishin pads, bio media, carbon media and peat balls.

To support the plants I have T5 plant friendly strips and a DIY CO2 cannister.

I have recently purchased an RO unit and TDS meter to help me bring down the GH, but obviously the RO water will be lacking in carbonate buffering.

I'm going to remove the two peatballs from the filter media now that the pH level is right and I have the RO unit.

I was going to sort the GH issue by dilluting the RO water with chlorine treated tap water to stabailise the GH, but what can I do to sort out the KH issue?

Adding the old school baking soda? Or is there a better way to sort this given the above info?

Advice grately appreciated.

[nikelodeon79]

Why are you altering the water chemistry?

Those levels look fine to me with the fish you have. I'd leave them alone.
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[NorthernMonkey]

Reading various sources it suggests a GH of no more than 4gdh for the discus, so I'm trying to bring it down...but with me dropping the gh its likely to affect the buffering capacity of the water and I don't want the pH to plummit any further...if anything I want to raise the pH by .3

[Darkblade48]

I agree with nikelodeon79, there seems to be nothing wrong with the water parameters you currently have.
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Anthony

[diademhill]

Which units are you using to measure GH & KH?
If you are using ppm you are well within tolerance for Discus.
http://www.scalewatcher.com/frames/miscellaneous.html

BTW GH cannot be lower than the KH.

[NorthernMonkey]

For the GH I'm using my TDS meter which is in PPM, then I'm converting back into German degrees.

I'm currently using tetra 6 in 1 test strips for KH, NA2, NA3 etc.

The water is currently at 300ppm which I'm sorting with a few water changes with RO water.

If you think the parameters are fine then great...just reading various online forums they suggest a GH of between 0-4 and a KH of around 4.

Should I relax and leave it?

[Darkblade48]

One issue with test strips are that they are notoriously inaccurate. Your readings that you are getting with them are likely wrong.
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Anthony

[NorthernMonkey]

Yeah, I do take the results of the test strips with a certain degree of scepticism.

Any suggestions for a better method of testing KH?

[Darkblade48]