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MattW

MattW

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My tap water is soft which is no good for the fish and shrimp I keep in my 90L. I decided to use Cuttlefish bone to increase the hardness to the favored levels of my Sawbwa resplendens. hardness: 54 – 268 ppm.

Welp it seems I may have overestimated it as that didn't go to plan.

A large water change should fix this?
 

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Did a water change that brought the ppm down a bit. Will maybe do another tomorrow
 

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Yes the softer your water initially is, the more it will dissolve rapidly.
 
FYI 283 is the Total Dissolved Solids based on the conductivity of the water with that tester. It will correlate with the general hardness but it is only an estimate. When I use my TDS sensor I get about 75 ppm higher reading than if I use a general hardness test. And if I add fertilizer the discrepancy gets larger.
 
MattW3344 said:
My tap water is soft which is no good for the fish and shrimp I keep in my 90L. I decided to use Cuttlefish bone to increase the hardness to the favored levels of my Sawbwa resplendens. hardness: 54 – 268 ppm.

Welp it seems I may have overestimated it as that didn't go to plan.

A large water change should fix this?
Click to expand...
Which hardness did you test (general GH or carbonate KH)?

I wouldn't have thought that a few pieces of cuttlebone would increase the GH at all. It might increase the KH a bit but it shouldn't increase it to 300ppm.
 
Colin_T said:
Which hardness did you test (general GH or carbonate KH)?

I wouldn't have thought that a few pieces of cuttlebone would increase the GH at all. It might increase the KH a bit but it shouldn't increase it to 300ppm.
Click to expand...
It isn't specified on the meter's product page :(
Just this image
tds.jpg

I have been reading up on the meter itself. A few reviews talk of the calibration being off and not 100% accurate. I do have a liquid GH and KH test kit somewhere I will try and test with that instead.

I did also remove about 2/3 of the cuttlefish bone after I did the water change before.
 
A TDS (total dissolved solids) meter will read everything that is dissolved in the water and cannot differentiate between carbonate hardness, general hardness or salt. Basically it just reads everything that is dissolved in the water.
 
You’re dipping your TDS meter too far into the water . You only have to immerse the electrodes . ( after looking at your picture you’re alright . That line , which is the top of your aquarium , looked like the water level to me )
 
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