Raising KH without raising PH?

[Daniella]

Cool! Do you feed them when you leave for 2 weeks? I was wondering what to do when going to vacations. It will be hard to find someone I can trust to feed them when I am gone, and not to overfeed them.

How did you build that filter strong enough to go for 2 weeks without water change and what is the feeding schedule when you are away? No water change at all for 2 weeks?

It stays zero, even when I'm out of town for 2 weeks. Built my filters STRONG.

Eddie

[Daniella]

Ok, I did some tests with baking soda and it rise my Ph.

Each one degree of Kh that I gain, I also gain .2 degree of Ph.

So if I was to rise the Kh by 4, I would make my Ph jump by .8, not good.

Anything else than bakind soda that will not make my Ph rise so much?

My Ph is 7.0 right now and I would make it 7.4 if I was to rise the kh by 2.

right now my Kh is only 2.

I am not sure that .4 jump in Ph is safe? I read no more than .3 in 24 hour?

Also it really does not take a lot of this stuff and it is a bit scary to dump that in the aquarium without knowing what effect it will have.

If one teaspoon will raise the kh by 4 for 50 liter, then I guess one teaspoon would rise it by 1 for 200 liter?

Any formula for calculating how much baking soda is needed to raise the Kh by 1 for 120 gallon?

thanks.

Easy to read article here...

http://www.chelonia.org/Articles/waterchemistry.htm





I use crushed coral in my filters but my KH is much lower than yours to start..

Technically if you maintain a good water change schedule, which replaces the KH consummed in your tank by biological processes...You should not have a problem with these values... Just monitor your KH and pH and plot it against the amount of water changes you do and you'll come up with the value that is optimum for maintaining your KH and pH
Hth,
al

[Eddie]

KH and PH work hand in hand. It's gonna be tough to raise the KH and have no rise in PH. Again, I wouldn't even be worried about it unless you are planning on not doing frequent water changes. Your KH is higher than mine. Thats just my 2 cents.

Eddie

[Daniella]

yes I do not worry about it for normal time but I plan on going in vacations for 8 days and nobody is going to do water change then. That is what worry me.

I guess before I leave for vacation, I will slowly return to tap water with Gh of 7 and Kh of 5, Ph 7.4.

That will be more stable. For now I mix 3/4 tap and 1/4 pur RO. that give me Gh 5 and Kh 3, Ph 7.2

What do you do when you leave for 2 weeks without water change? is someone still feeding the fish without doing water change then? How much do they feed them?

If the fish are not fed, then are they skinny after 2 weeks when you return?


QUOTE=Eddie;542227]KH and PH work hand in hand. It's gonna be tough to raise the KH and have no rise in PH. Again, I wouldn't even be worried about it unless you are planning on not doing frequent water changes. Your KH is higher than mine. Thats just my 2 cents.

Eddie[/QUOTE]

[wgtaylor]

Hi Daniella,

I think most of your discus are adult or almost. A week without food should not hurt them at all. I know several people on here that have done that exact thing and come home to find all their pairs tending fry. Like Eddie, my water is sooo much softer than yours and its not a problem. I would use baking soda only for emergencies. Safer to not feed while you are gone than have someone overfeed them without water change. When you have a couple minutes this article might be interesting.
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/AquariumKH.html

Have fun on your vacation,

Bill

[Daniella]

No, I do have quite a few that are young, even one that is 2". I only have 3 adults and one that is near adult. This is what I have:

1 eruption 6"
1 yellowface red melon 5.5"
1 pigeon blood tiger 6"
1 checkerboard PB 4.5"
1 white butterfly 4"
1 white butterfly 3"
1 pb 3"
2 2.5" blue cobalt
1 2" blue cobalt
1 albinos 4"

Hi Daniella,

I think most of your discus are adult or almost. A week without food should not hurt them at all. I know several people on here that have done that exact thing and come home to find all their pairs tending fry. Like Eddie, my water is sooo much softer than yours and its not a problem. I would use baking soda only for emergencies. Safer to not feed while you are gone than have someone overfeed them without water change. When you have a couple minutes this article might be interesting.
http://www.americanaquariumproducts.com/AquariumKH.html

Have fun on your vacation,

Bill

[Eddie]

Leave for 2 weeks and don't feed them, or if the wife is around, she will feed them once a day. No water changes.

I built my filters up by controlling the amounts of ammonia, nitrite present in my tanks when I first started feeding my fish 10-12 times a day. The filters were not capable of handling this type of load so I would do small water changes to keep the levels from going out of control, but still allowing enough to build the bacteria. It took me a few months on top of my already cycled filters to establish themselves to handle it. So now my filters are used to being bombarded with waste and lots of ammonia. When I leave, I don't feed or feed only once a day where that would amount to about 14 feeds altogether. Not much for the filters to handle.

Eddie

[wgtaylor]

No, I do have quite a few that are young, even one that is 2". I only have 3 adults and one that is near adult. This is what I have:

1 eruption 6"
1 yellowface red melon 5.5"
1 pigeon blood tiger 6"
1 checkerboard PB 4.5"
1 white butterfly 4"
1 white butterfly 3"
1 pb 3"
2 2.5" blue cobalt
1 2" blue cobalt
1 albinos 4"

Forgot you had smaller ones in quarantine. Well, get an automatic feeder and set for once or twice a day.
Just like being a parent along comes responsibilities. Maybe you have to postpone vacation until next year.

Bill

[Daniella]

haha...I am actualy thinking of doing just that. I know I would be worried about my discus while away. I thought of automatic feeder but they only eat discus flakes as dry food and these float at the surface so I would be afraid that the discus would not get them and they would rot there at the surface. I make they sink when I feed them.

they don't eat pellets so these would probably pollute the water.

I am thinking of selling all my small discus and getter adults or young adults.

Forgot you had smaller ones in quarantine. Well, get an automatic feeder and set for once or twice a day.
Just like being a parent along comes responsibilities. Maybe you have to postpone vacation until next year.

Bill

[shawnhu]

Thanks Al, I used Baking Soda to keep my PH stable when I first started keeping discus, just couldn't remember how much. I always wanted to know a good measurement amount for reference.

Take care,

Eddie

Any formula for calculating how much baking soda is needed to raise the Kh by 1 for 120 gallon?

thanks.

Here you go buddy.

http://www.dataguru.org/misc/aquariu...&pHChange=0.00

[shawnhu]

For the tests, all I could find was API Gh and Kh test. Does API make an alkalinity test?

Yes, it's around $8-10 I beleive for both GH and KH

[shawnhu]

KH and PH work hand in hand. It's gonna be tough to raise the KH and have no rise in PH. Again, I wouldn't even be worried about it unless you are planning on not doing frequent water changes. Your KH is higher than mine. Thats just my 2 cents.

Eddie

You could use CO2 injection.

yes I do not worry about it for normal time but I plan on going in vacations for 8 days and nobody is going to do water change then. That is what worry me.

I guess before I leave for vacation, I will slowly return to tap water with Gh of 7 and Kh of 5, Ph 7.4.

That will be more stable. For now I mix 3/4 tap and 1/4 pur RO. that give me Gh 5 and Kh 3, Ph 7.2

What do you do when you leave for 2 weeks without water change? is someone still feeding the fish without doing water change then? How much do they feed them?

If the fish are not fed, then are they skinny after 2 weeks when you return?

Discus can go for months without eating, 2 weeks won't put much of a dent in them. Lower the temp to 82-84 and feed less to the smaller ones. Making sure the KH is 4+ would definately help.

Why don't you do this:

Prepair dry food and split it into portions for someone to help you feed them once a day. Add a little baking soda to the food so it can constantly maintain some KH. Might work =)

[shawnhu]

Shawn CO2 won't raise KH , it'll drop it

I meant by adding baking soda+CO2 = higher KH + keeping PH the same

The KH will eventually be consumed.

[MostlyDiscus]

Danny, I will say it here but anyone can take it for what its worth. Why bother with the ph at all? If it drops it will be in small amounts over a long period of time. If you dont feed during the duration of your trip then the drop will be less. Some mornings I come down and my meters and or controllers(3) say the ph is between 4.3 and 4.7. They dont match in ph but the difference is nothing to worry about. I agree with Bill the challenger in his statement about fry. You may find eggs when you return home. I just read a great article given to me by Sweeney and it said that during the dry season the parents looked horrible. They had very little food and the ph was low. I keep a ph controller for baking soda to try and keep my ph around 5.5 to 6. The reason for this is for selling the babies to others that keep their ph higher. Anyone else here keep a lower PH? If so what?

Ed

[brewmaster15]

Ed,
except for my breeders...my pH is usually 7.2-7.8 per tank(thats what my aged well water is)...and in my heavy stocked grow outs I have Crushed coral in their filters to keep that pH at in the 7.0-7.4 range.

-al