High Kh

[nightlite]

Hi,

I get told a lot of things at my LFS, I kind of take them with a pinch of salt

the latest they told me was to lower my tank KH to 3 - 4 as my KH is 5 ... how do I lower the KH?
Thanks
Lyndon

 

[George Farmer]

KH 5 is fine. No need to lower it.

Your LFS staff are either misinformed or wish to sell you more stuff (or both).

 

[Themuleous]

Indeed, as George says sounds a bit pointless to me. Lowering KH is normally tricky and expensive. My water is at around 5 and I don't have any problems with the plants at all, well not that are due to the KH anyway! Plenty of other problems!

Sam

 

[nightlite]

thanks.... probably they just want to sell me more stuff...... one LFS wanted to sell me enough JBL aqua basis substrate to fill half my 8gallon tank.....

 

[Graeme Edwards]

Most fish shop are total crap. I got told once that my tank wasnt mature until i had added some guppys or platys, and refused to sell me what i wanted. Well we had a short argument about how my tank was mature, she gave in ( proberbly because she didnt have a clue ) and i got what i was after. It was only a few Ottos I wanted after all that!!!!!! For a tank 2 months old that had been fully planted up and tetra Cycle added daily. Crazy!!!

 

[BigIan]

my tank kh is 0 (thank you ADA aqua soil) and i have no real issues besides a low ph

 

[alanchown]

KH 5 is fine. No need to lower it.

Your LFS staff are either misinformed or wish to sell you more stuff (or both).

My KH is 180ppm which I think equates to about 10 degrees. Any likely problems with this? I've sometimes pondered using rainwater as I keep South American fish, i.e. softwater lovers (in the wild anyway)

Alan

 

[three-fingers]

Rainwater's not too good an idea especially since you live in London.
In any town/city the rain washes down loads of pollutants with it.
If you lived in the countryside, it would be safer to use rainwater, but you would still get some pollutants from motorways or anything that has blown over.
I recommended buying an RO unit if you really need soft water, but even then you would need to re mineralise this to keep fish or plants in it.
But most fish you buy these days have adapted to hard and slightly alkaline water.

I guess I'm lucky I have soft water, but it's annoying when you want to keep livebearers like platys...

 

[alanchown]

Rainwater's not too good an idea especially since you live in London.
In any town/city the rain washes down loads of pollutants with it.
If you lived in the countryside, it would be safer to use rainwater, but you would still get some pollutants from motorways or anything that has blown over.
I recommended buying an RO unit if you really need soft water, but even then you would need to re mineralise this to keep fish or plants in it.
But most fish you buy these days have adapted to hard and slightly alkaline water.

I guess I'm lucky I have soft water, but it's annoying when you want to keep livebearers like platys...

Perhaps we should swap-I quite like Edinburgh! As you say it probably doesn't matter, the plants grow and the fish are OK.

Alan

 

[Themuleous]

If you're worried about pollutants in rain water run it through some activated carbon, that should remove it. I'm going to use rainwater when I move house far cheaper than RO!

Sam