Gh/kh Test Kits

[rewlyn]

ive purchased the api GH/KH test kit, now for GH you are meant to keep adding drop by drop till it goes green, now ive added 20 drops/20dKH/358ppm, according to chart, and not looking like its giong to turn green, the bottle says 0408 manufactorer date, am i doing something wrong, or is there something wrong with my tank.

please help if you can

thanks rewlyn

 

[Rediahs]

Your water could be really really hard like mine. Just keep adding drops til it turns green. It will keep getting more and more orange until suddenly it turns green. It's not a gradual thing, it's a "I've hit it" thing - keep trying.

 

[rewlyn]

ok kept adding and GH is 24 drops,24dKH,429.6ppm and my KH is 2drops,2dKH,35.8ppm.
what does it mean and how much buffer(API buffer max) should i add being for malawi it should be about 6dGH and 8dKH.

 

[waterdrop]

ok kept adding and GH is 24 drops,24dKH,429.6ppm and my KH is 2drops,2dKH,35.8ppm.
what does it mean and how much buffer(API buffer max) should i add being for malawi it should be about 6dGH and 8dKH.

Wow! That is *extremely* unusual water. Very unusual to have extremely high Permanent Hardess and extremely low Carbonate Hardness.

I don't know the answers to your questions but hopefully others will come along to offer some plans...

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Geoff1991]

Where does it say the manufacturer date?

 

[OldMan47]

The test results say that you have lots of calcium and magnesium ions in the water but not much at all in terms of helping stabilize the pH. If you have a lot of plants growing in the tank, they may have absorbed all of the carbonates to use as a carbon source, the same way that excel works, so a water change may very well correct the balance of plant nutrients. If you are doing lots of big water changes already, it is possible that the water source itself happens to be low in carbonate hardness. That is not a typical thing but is far from rare.

 

[Essjay]

Where does it say the manufacturer date?

It's disguised in the lot number. When I asked the manufacturer they said

"each reagent bottle has a Lot # printed on the bottle. The last four digits are the month and year of manufacture. Example: Lot # 28A0108. This is a pH reagent manufactured in January of 2008."

The GH test lasts for three years from the date of manufacture, KH four years

 

[rewlyn]

i seem to attrack the wierdist issues

i only have plastic and silk plants