How Much Coral Or Coral Sand?

[ziggyboy]

My tank 55G tank has a DIY CO2 setup of 2 3L bottles. At the moment I'm getting a KH of 4 and PH of 6.6. I would like to raise my hardness and ultimately my PH to 7.0. How much coral or coral sand should I buy?

 

[Themuleous]

I guess the first answer to that is a question, why do you need/want to increase the pH to 7? Most fish are fine in a pH of 6.6, hell I've had and have tanks running at pH 6. Unless you have rift lake cichlids, I cant see the need to increase the pH, especially by as little a 0.4. Trying to be that precise is also going to be very difficult. If you use coral you'll have no control over how much dissolves into the tank I wouldn't think. You could you bicarbonate of soda but you'll need to add it every time you do a water change and poss also between each water change.

I would save yourself a load of hassle and leave the pH at 6.6

Sam

 

[hunterm8]

i am with sam, i use coral sand for my shellies it gives me around a 8.2 ph from 7.0, i cant see it being easy to judge an amount to give you 7.0 if at all possible. soda would be easier.

 

[ziggyboy]

Thanks. I plan on keeping common community fish in there like angels, corys, gouramis, tetras, etc. so I hope they're ok with 6.6. Also, wouldn't my bogwood and CO2 further drive the PH down? It's only been a week since I've added them.

I bought some aragonite and put about 2 kg at the bottom of my canister filter. I just wanna see how I'd go with that...