KH levels

[Vervo]

Hello,

So today i purchased a GH / KH tester.

My GH is reading 140ppm

and my KH is reading 50ppm

Are these values to high? What is considered a normal KH for growing plants with CO2 injection.

Thanks

[phoenix44]

How well were your plants growing before you bought the test kit? -.-

I've never really tested my KH or GH on my planted tank. But read this article for KH, GH and pH.

http://irenastankadventure.blogspot.com ... oh-my.html

[kiwiplymouth]

My readings are 4dGH and 5dKH which sit in the 50-100ppm range and would be considered to be low/mid range levels.

If you were measuring your KH for the formula that I mentioned yesterday you need to use the dkh value for the Kh not the ppm value

[phoenix44]

From above link -

General Hardness Table

0 to 4dH 0 to 70ppm ---> Very soft

4 to 8dH 70 to 140ppm ---> Soft

8 to 12dH 140 to 210ppm ---> Medium hard

12 to 18dH 210 to 320ppm ---> Fairly Hard

18 to 30dH 320 to 530ppm ---> Hard

[Vervo]

How well were your plants growing before you bought the test kit? -.-

I've never really tested my KH or GH on my planted tank. But read this article for KH, GH and pH.

http://irenastankadventure.blogspot.com ... oh-my.html

Well weve only just setup our CO2 yesterday, before that, the plants have been growing, but stunted, leaves of tiger lotus not growing large etc.

And glosso barely growing at all.

We have our CO2 on at around 2bps at the moment, so will see how that does.

I found an online CO2 level calculator here : http://www.fishfriend.com/aquarium_co2_calculator.html

And it seems with my pH at 6.8 and my kH at 50ppm, my CO2 is around 13ppm which is to low.

Im guessing the addition of the CO2 is going to lower to pH and not affect the hardness?

If this is the case pH 6.4-6.6 seems to be a good range for the fish and CO2 levels as they will be around 20-30ppm

[Morcs]

KH is very important on planted tanks. Not that its high, but that it is monitored and controlled IMO.

Purely because if the plants strip all the nutrients and carbonates out of the water, you KH will drop dangerously low, thus increasing the risk of a PH crash - and Co2 obviously lowers PH also.

Good regular WC, and complete dosing with ferts and macro nutrients, and you shouldnt have anything to worry about.

[Vervo]

An Update :

After two days (and turned off at nights) of running 2 bps, my pH has gone from 6.8 to 6.4 and kH stayed at 50ppm.

The CO2 Calc is showing that to be 33ppm of CO2

Now im guessing the real level is a little lower then this, since my pH was 6.8 at start due to pH Down used to lower pH from 7 (our tap waters pH)