maintenence ph/kh confusion

[vincent]

hello all!

I have some confusion which I am currently looking to solve.

I have been learning about dH /kH and how it may all affect my aquarium. I am attempting to keep the hardness up for what I understand is shell development.

I have just read a thread about adding sea salt to the (fresh water) aquarium being a poor idea. I had been doing that till now.

I have also added coral to the filter system and it has increased the hardness slightly but my PH shot way up 7.6! interestingly it has now changed all my electric blue babies to a brown shade;(

I am learning about buffers and such...how can I keep the hardness up while reducing the pH buffers to keep the pH steady at an optimal 7.2. or is it worth it to try for harder water.

appreciate any replies while i head to the local library.

I am also going to purchase a proper kH tester just in case, the strip testers have been incorrect before.

[Hejzan]

I dont understand someone could have anything against salt, unless they got animals that cannot withstand salt levels.. but salt is almost free and has so many wonderful features in an aquarium.

I got a problem with pH earlier in my tank, but i found out having a small cartridge of activated carbon would hold my pH steady on 7.2 with the normal hardness in my tap water.

I would just find some permanent buffer for calcium like sea shells or oyster shells, there are many choices. to make sure your pH dont run up and down too much, which crays and shrimps dont like.

[vincent]

yeah salt isn't really hurting anything I guess.

you are correct that I do not use Activated Carbon.

the nature of the water in my area is extremely soft and low pH approx 6.4 - 6.8 so it has always been in my interest to increase the gH (it is actually the gH that is consistently low @<50ppm) as I understood it, to assist in increasing the pH.

I believe the salt has increased the kH from 0ppm to what might be called Ideal at 100-180ppm.

It was my attempt to increase the gH by adding coral to the filter system. the downfall at this point, is that I didn't check the pH accurately before the addition. So to tell the truth, as unscientific as I could get, I do not know what increased my pH. I do weekly water changes and assumed the water had the same charachteristics as in the past.

As well my test strips have been notably innacruate (pH for sure) since i bought a proper testing kit. I will have to purchase a gH/kH kit to be sure anything is accurate at this point.

Amature and backwards and even a bit foolosh, I know but that is my truth and how I am learning I understand I shouldn't rush this anyway hopefully my weekly water change tomorrow will bring things back inline somewhat.

Thanks for the input!

[Hejzan]

i would recommend 250ppm of hardness for crayfish (im not sure if shrimps are the same)

If you know the current hardness and pH of your tap water and have a way to meassure it, there are easy methods to increase the hardness and pH of the water before you put it in.
I dont know enough about these additives that i feel to advice for them sorry

[Ulli Bauer]

Well, hardness and hardness is not the same, really.
Adding salt does increase the total hardness, but adds nothing a cray needs for building up its shell (which would be calcium, not sodium). Thus I'd rather use coral or crushed seashells to raise the KH/GH.

Salt acts antibacterial, true. But salt also always irritates mucous membranes. If your fish or crays do better with salt in the water you ought to ask yourself why that is so - mostly you'll find your water quality is not the best, or there are too many bacteria (overfeeding is almost always an issue then) - it's best to change these before just throwing salt in.

Moreover, if you constantly have salt in your water you deprive yourself of a great medicine. I'd only use salt as a medication when needed. If it's not broken, don't fix it . There are better ways to raise the hardness.

Cheers
Ulli

[Hejzan]

Wise words from Ulli, i started dosing my tank with salt as i noticed the fur covering the crayfish Epistylis Protozoan was getting greatly reduced.

Im not sure of the details, but as Ulli mentioned it can also help prevent Shell rot, Porcelin disease/white tail, tail rot and different kind of worms, almost any crayfish disease can be helped with a salt bath and prevent the disease from occuring.

Can you elaborate about the mucous ulli ? sounds like it has something to do with digesting and the stuff on a berried tail.

[Palinurus]

Hi

There is some confusion. Kitchensalt is sodium chloride. It raises conductivity, annoys the plants, but doesn´t raise neither KH nor GH. With entire sea salt you can raise the hardness, but you add five times as much sodium chloride, too. Hardness is a mixture of mainly carbonates and sulfates of calcium and magnesium. They are essential for shells, bones, carapaces, corals and plants use magnesium for chlorophyll.
If you want to harden too soft water, you have two possibilities. You can put ground corals into your filter and boost the process by adding carbon dioxide to the water entering the filter. The second, more rapid method is, you dissolve a bit of gypsum by heating the water, wait until the not dissolved had sunk and add the clear solution slowly to the tank water. Instead of gypsum you can take also a piece of white crayon like used in schools. Gypsum raises only total hardness, but not KH. With crayon it depends. Here in Germany crayon may consist of gypsum or of chalk. You know it, if some drops of vinegar make the crayon foaming. Then it´s chalk. Dissolved chalk raises the KH.

Cheers
Wolfgang