Question From New Member: Gh And Kh Levels

[saintkel]

Is it possible to attain a decent/high KH level (always good to have a good buffer against spikes) whilst also having a relatively low GH level as your fish prefer soft water?

Seems to be easy to have a healthy buffer if you have hard water but not the case if you want soft water.

Any tips or tricks on how to achieve this?

Thanks in advance.

 

[Aphotic Phoenix]

Frequent testing until you are confident of your tanks "habits", and scheduled water changes are the best defense against pH swings. Playing with your water chemistry requires a big commitment to always pre-mixing your water. Furthermore, from what I understand (and someone correct me if I'm wrong here), Carbonate is an ion and thus increases the conductivity of water which "soft water" fish do not like...thus keeping a low GH in comparison to KH would not achieve the desired affect.

Good article here: http/www.cichlid-forum.com/articles/gh_kh_ph.php

 

[saintkel]

Thanks very much for the advice and good link. I was wondering if the high kh / low gh ideal I was hoping for would turn out to be hard/impossible to achieve and getting there may have undesirable results.