Water Hardness Questions

[Bucketeer]

Hi,

I currently have four tanks and am in a quandary about my 55 community tank. It has angels and neons. I use RO water and add 1 tsp/10 gal of RO Right when I do water chages. The tank also has potted amazon swords and a few crypts in it. The medium in the pots is pure laterite and substrate gold. The fish are healthy and happy. The plants have looked better :(

The water in this tank has been running at 30 degrees GH and 0 degrees KH. for the life of me I can't figure out why the GH is so high and the KH so low.
Any ideas? Could it be the the plant substrate causing the GH to be so high? Why is the KH so low?

When I tested the RO water in the barrel it had a GH of 6 degrees and a KH of 0. I would think the straight RO water would have a GH of 0 as well.

I think I am adding a conductivity meter to my wish-list!

Thanks in advance,

Bill

[pcsb23]

Bill, I'd be a tad suspicious of the 0 degrees KH, I suspect its between 0 and 10, still not very high though. A lot will depend on your tap water as to what the best course of action is. Many people, me included, use RO water and re-mineralise it with filtered tap water. I have a breakout just beforet he membranes with a tap on it, so I get filtered tap from there. It works out a lot less expensive than using ro-right etc. If you aim for 60 degrees GH you will most likely get around 20 to 30 degrees Kh, however I'm not overly familiar with RO Right. This would still constitute soft water.

[Bucketeer]

Paul wrote:


Bill, I'd be a tad suspicious of the 0 degrees KH, I suspect its between 0 and 10, still not very high though. A lot will depend on your tap water as to what the best course of action is. Many people, me included, use RO water and re-mineralise it with filtered tap water. I have a breakout just beforet he membranes with a tap on it, so I get filtered tap from there. It works out a lot less expensive than using ro-right etc. If you aim for 60 degrees GH you will most likely get around 20 to 30 degrees Kh, however I'm not overly familiar with RO Right. This would still constitute soft water.

Thanks for the reply Paul.

Unfortunately all the water in the house goes through a water softener. I could possibly tap into a line that goes to the outside spigots and is unsoftened to be used for mixing, but this would be unfiltered.

Thanks again,

Bill

[pcsb23]

Bill, I don't know a lot about whole house systems, Randall might see this thread and put his .02 in, but failing that a small amount of bicarb of soda will up the kh (and the ph). If you can get Sera mineral salts try that too instead of the RO Right, I used to use this stuff and found it the best of them, but like all of them it is expensive.

[brewmaster15]

Hi Bill,
Whole house softeners run on sodium chloride or potassium chloride... does yours use potassium chloride?

-al

[Bucketeer]

Hi Al,

We use sodium chloride. I'm still a little perplexed as to why my GH is so high with straight RO water and RO Right added to re-mineralize. I think I may do a few water changes without adding the mineral and try to get it lowered to 10 degrees GH.

Do you think the plants could be altering the KH? The pH hovers between 6.0-6.5.

Bill