Kh Level Above 20 Despite Using Tetra Minus Kh

[David Thompson]

Good morning,

Hoping for some advice. I am trying to set up my 60L tropical tank and I have been using the Tetra Test Strips. I have been trying to lower the KH level without success as its been constantly at 20. I do live in a hard water area being London but I expected the Tetra Minus PH/KH to lover the levels which it has not done.

Does anyone have any suggestions?

Regards,
David

 

[Essjay]

Hi, welcome to the forum.

The only safe way to lower KH and GH is by mixing your tap water with pure water - reverse osmosis water, distilled water or even rainwater if you can be sure it is free from airborne contamination.
Using Tetra pH/KH Minus is not recommended as any chemical you add to a tank will get inside the fish. And if you are trying to reduce the KH to keep soft water fish, you need to remove things from the water rather than add them. Just because a product is made does not mean it is good to use them, unfortunately.

Your tap water is perfect for livebearers and Rift Lake cichlids, though 60 litres is too small for those cichlids. They need high GH and high pH.
But if you want to keep soft water fish you will need to dilute your hard water with pure water.


You say you are setting up the tank - do you have any fish yet? If you do, what are they? If not, which fish do you intend to keep?

 

[David Thompson]

Hi, welcome to the forum.

The only safe way to lower KH and GH is by mixing your tap water with pure water - reverse osmosis water, distilled water or even rainwater is you can be sure it is free from airborne contamination.
Using Tetra pH/KH Minus is not recommended as any chemical you add to a tank will get inside the fish. And if you are trying to reduce the KH to keep soft water fish, you need to remove things from the water rather than add them. Just because a product is made does not mean it is good to use them, unfortunately.

Your tap water is perfect for livebearers and Rift Lake cichlids, though 60 litres is too small for those cichlids. They need high GH and high pH.
But if you want to keep soft water fish you will need to dilute your hard water with pure water.


You say you are setting up the tank - do you have any fish yet? If you do, what are they? If not, which fish do you intend to keep?

I currently dont have any fish, I was trying to stabilise the tank first of all. However I would be looking at getting Platy fish

 

[Byron]

I currently dont have any fish, I was trying to stabilise the tank first of all. However I would be looking at getting Platy fish

Platies are livebearers and they all need harder (as opposed to softer) water so this should work very well. I am assuming your water is on the hard side, which I believe from other threads it likely would be in the London area. Leave the GH, KH and pH alone, they will be fine for such fish.

The other questions in essjay's post need answering, I will leave that for the present. Once you are cycled, the tap water will be stable and remain so, if the GH/KH are significant as I believe they are.

This is a small tank at 60 liters (15 gallons). If the base dimensions are around 60 cm length by 30 cm width, platies will be OK, but not many of them. All males will ensure you are not suddenly overloaded with fry which will happen with females present. If you do have both genders, you will need more females and only one male as the "courting" by males is very intense and there must bee more females to spread this around or they will be seriously hurt. This tank really is not large enough for both genders anyway, so I again suggest only males.

 

[seangee]

As others have said, platys, guppies, swordtails and mollies are all just fine in London's water just as it is.