High GH and low PH? Any fix?

[tabletopfishguy]

Hey yall, Currently trying to figure out a predicament i have. My tap water is very hard where I live (Im aware GH and PH are not exactly correlated as far as i know). I have a 10 Gallon Planted tank, 6 ember tetras a female betta and 6 neocaridina shrimp. They all behvae normally and eat and show no exact signs of stress. (yet.. im aware its only a matter of time till the shrimp have molting problems) My GH sits at 300ppm, My PH is at around 6.5-6.8 And my KH is ridiculously low at 20-40ppm (i know that one correlates with PH).
Substrate-Flourite Black & Basic river stone gravel
Decor- Live plants and cholla wood and a different piece of driftwood.
I read that putting calcium/cuttlebone?/crushed coral will help raise Ph? But wont that make my GH even higher?
Im slightly lost as to what I should do
Nitrate-0
Nitrite-0
Ammonia-0

 

[Sir Guppy]

Here, try this:

A Beginner's Guide to Decreasing Aquarium Water Hardness - Rooted Tank | Planted Aquariums Advice & Guides

Naturally lower your aquarium hardness by soaking dechlorinated tap water in peat moss, Indian almond leaves or driftwood. A more precise method would be to dilute tap water with reverse osmosis (RO) or distilled water or to use remineralized RO water.

rootedtank.com

However be careful as I suspect some of the recommendations to be advertisements.

 

[Colin_T]

KH (carbonate hardness) is linked to pH. The more KH, generally the higher the pH.

The only way to reduce the GH is to dilute the well water with pure water (rain, reverse osmosis or distilled).

 

[tabletopfishguy]

KH (carbonate hardness) is linked to pH. The more KH, generally the higher the pH.

The only way to reduce the GH is to dilute the well water with pure water (rain, reverse osmosis or distilled).

should I remineralize the water afterwards with some sort of formula? I feel like just straight RO water or tap water would starve my tank of the minerals it needs, or should i just rely on the minerals and nutrients in the water that i were to leave in the tank? Thanks!

 

[Colin_T]

Bettas and most tetras come from soft water with low to no mineral content. Shrimp do need some minerals in the water.

If your GH is 300ppm, then use 1 part well water to 2 parts pure water and you will get a GH around 100ppm, which is fine for most tetras, Bettas and shrimp.

 

[StevenF]

What is the KH and GH before it goes isn the tank. Do you add anything to the water in the tank. PH up PH down products fertilizer or KH products. Just a note that at your water PH you fish and shrimp should be fine. Your PH would have to drop below 6 before I would worry.

 

[10 Tanks]

Hello. Roughly 20 years ago, I read a book by someone who had been keeping fish since the 1960s. That's a long time ago, but he said that the vast majority of fish will do fine in the vast majority of public water supplies. He said all you needed to do was to maintain a steady water chemistry and not try to change it. He maintained that all you needed to do was to remove the old water and replace it with treated tap water every few days. I thought this was too easy, but how can you argue with success? So, I started doing the same thing and I was surprised how much more successful I was keeping fish. Now, I change half or more of the tank water at least weekly. Sometimes, I change it more often. The more fish I have in a tank, the more water I change. I don't spend money on testing or high end filters. I simply change out the water and do it the same every week. This has maintained a steady water chemistry and the fish thrive in all the clean water.

10

 

[Colin_T]

What is the KH and GH before it goes in the tank. Do you add anything to the water in the tank. PH up PH down products fertilizer or KH products. Just a note that at your water PH you fish and shrimp should be fine. Your PH would have to drop below 6 before I would worry.

from post 1

My GH sits at 300ppm, My PH is at around 6.5-6.8 And my KH is ridiculously low at 20-40ppm (i know that one correlates with PH).

 

[tabletopfishguy]

Hello. Roughly 20 years ago, I read a book by someone who had been keeping fish since the 1960s. That's a long time ago, but he said that the vast majority of fish will do fine in the vast majority of public water supplies. He said all you needed to do was to maintain a steady water chemistry and not try to change it. He maintained that all you needed to do was to remove the old water and replace it with treated tap water every few days. I thought this was too easy, but how can you argue with success? So, I started doing the same thing and I was surprised how much more successful I was keeping fish. Now, I change half or more of the tank water at least weekly. Sometimes, I change it more often. The more fish I have in a tank, the more water I change. I don't spend money on testing or high end filters. I simply change out the water and do it the same every week. This has maintained a steady water chemistry and the fish thrive in all the clean water.

10

have you had success breeding shrimp with this method?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

KH in tanks comes mostly from carbonates and bicarbonates. So, get a fine mesh bag and some crushed coral for aquaium use. You may have to buy a lot more than you need. So if you know other fishkeepers who do rift lake cichlids or SW tanks may have it and be willing to part with a few cups. I bought a 25 pound bag close to 20 years ago and have a lot of it left. In a 10 gal 10 I would probably start with about 1/4 cup of the coral or a bit less.

The reason for using so little is it will raise the KH so you can see the change but it will not be enough to raise the GH. Use too much and ye, it will raise the GH as well.

Acid water dissolves the crushed coral which will raise the pH. The higher the pH goes towards 7.0 the less it will dissolve the coral. One you are above 7.0 it does very little beside holding up the pH. You could try adding Baking Soda aka Sodium bicarbonate, but it will raise the pH towards and equilibrium of 8.2 and deposit sodium in the water the fish wont like. The only way to remove sodium is via water changes.

One last note. The cycle itself creates acid because of the nitrite and nitrate created even though most is consumed in your tank by the bacteria and the plants. But with a low KH that small amount of acid may be enough to overcome the ability of the KH to preven the pH from dropping.

How often and how much water do you change? And, what is the KH and the pH of your tap water?

 

[seangee]

Think you are trying to fix a problem that doesn't exist. All the fish you mentioned, and the shrimp will be just fine. You should do large weekly changes, say 75% which is easy enough in a 10G. Without this your water will tend to get more acidic over time - but that will be sufficient to keep it stable. FWIW my KH is 0 and this works fine for me. I have ember tetras and neos in tanks that have been running like this for years.

 

[10 Tanks]

have you had success breeding shrimp with this method?

Hello tabletop. I did. This is going to test my memory. But, as I recall, shrimp are easier to keep in most water conditions than fish. Shrimp are more sensitive to changes in their water chemistry. They'll need more water changed than fish. But, water is easy to change. Guess that may be the reason I started to change out more tank water in the first place. I'm not an expert on shrimp, though. Shrimp can be kept in most public water supplies, the same as fish. Here's the problem, if there is one. The harder the water, in other words, the higher concentration of minerals in the water, the harder it will be to breed shrimp. The water here in Colorado has close to a neutral pH, so I didn't have trouble keeping them.

10

 

[tabletopfishguy]

KH in tanks comes mostly from carbonates and bicarbonates. So, get a fine mesh bag and some crushed coral for aquaium use. You may have to buy a lot more than you need. So if you know other fishkeepers who do rift lake cichlids or SW tanks may have it and be willing to part with a few cups. I bought a 25 pound bag close to 20 years ago and have a lot of it left. In a 10 gal 10 I would probably start with about 1/4 cup of the coral or a bit less.

The reason for using so little is it will raise the KH so you can see the change but it will not be enough to raise the GH. Use too much and ye, it will raise the GH as well.

Acid water dissolves the crushed coral which will raise the pH. The higher the pH goes towards 7.0 the less it will dissolve the coral. One you are above 7.0 it does very little beside holding up the pH. You could try adding Baking Soda aka Sodium bicarbonate, but it will raise the pH towards and equilibrium of 8.2 and deposit sodium in the water the fish wont like. The only way to remove sodium is via water changes.

One last note. The cycle itself creates acid because of the nitrite and nitrate created even though most is consumed in your tank by the bacteria and the plants. But with a low KH that small amount of acid may be enough to overcome the ability of the KH to preven the pH from dropping.

How often and how much water do you change? And, what is the KH and the pH of your tap water?

Sorry for late on replies but my PH out of tap is acidic like 6.4 maybe most likely lower, and the kh is at 0 completely and its a fairly hard water source at like 200ppm its kind of hard to seem to make it work so ive been trying to use r/o and distilled water. I need to get cruched coral to raise my ph like said because its slightly too acidic for my liking if id even get up to a 6.8-9 id be happy.