Increasing Gh

[brogan86]

what other ways is there of increaseing GH without using limestone/coral/ect or commercially available adjusters ?

 

[Underwurlde]

Bicarbonate of Soda.

[edit] Can I ask, why you want to alter hardness? It is fiddlesome, expensive and a pain to do. Should really start with RO (et al) water to acheive a 'set' GH etc.

Andy

 

[brogan86]

don't baking soda only increase KH/PH ?

i use nutrafin african cichlid conditioner to increase GH at the mo and baking soda to increase KH/PH. i was just wondering if there was anything better/cheaper for me to use instead of that african conditioner. e.g some kind of salt ?

 

[dthoffsett]

Here's a link to a homemade buffer recipe, it uses baking soda and epsom salt, and marine salt, and is much less expensive that the commercial buffers.

[URL="http/www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/buffer_recipe.php"]http/www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/buffer_recipe.php[/URL]

 

[cuprajake]

you can actually buy lake malaiwi salts that mimic the water conditions of the lake, its about £8 for 250g iirc

works good,

 

[brogan86]

Here's a link to a homemade buffer recipe, it uses baking soda and epsom salt, and marine salt, and is much less expensive that the commercial buffers.

[URL="http/www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/buffer_recipe.php"]http/www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/buffer_recipe.php[/URL]

thats something like i was looking for, thanks. do you use it yourself ?

you can actually buy lake malaiwi salts that mimic the water conditions of the lake, its about £8 for 250g iirc

works good,

i think ive seen something simular on ebay before, how many gallons would 250g treat ?

 

[cuprajake]

yeah its good stuf, you use about a teaspoon after a water change so a bit goes a long way i think its seachem

yup it is

http/cgi.ebay.co.uk/Seachem-Cichlid-Lake...VQQcmdZViewItem

got mine from colin at natural world

jake

 

[dthoffsett]

thats something like i was looking for, thanks. do you use it yourself ?

No, I don't use the recipe myself. Fortunately my PH is already above 8, unfortunately, the KH is really low, I was able to offset that by adding crushed coral in the filter and using aragontie sand for substrate. It's still a good inexpensive recipe though.