Simple Kh Question For A Thick Person!

[oldwhitewood]

I posted about this on my journal but nobody has replied. My KH is currently 2 and my ph is about 6.8! I discovered this after getting my new test kit. Shocked! My old one was too inaccurate and I knew something was wrong. If I increase CO2 will that will decrease KH? How do I keep these parameters in check?

 

[Ptarmigan]

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[oldwhitewood]

A haa right gotcha. Let's try the old gasping at the surface test

only kidding!

 

[George Farmer]

Neil – I’d be tempted to leave things be. Your dissolved CO2 maybe be lower than “standard” levels but if you are experiencing good growth and no algae then why upset the balance?

Increasing CO2 will increase growth rates and this will in turn will lead to an increase in other nutrient uptake i.e. NPK and trace. Your present dosing with the ADA fert obviously works well so why risk the potential need to increase it, and possibly upsetting the apparent ideal balance you have struck so far.

It’s worth remembering that Amano himself runs relatively low (dissolved) CO2 with all his lighting. If you read the gallery stats in the ADA catalogue then he has pH 6.8 or thereabouts with a Total Hardness (GH) of 20ppm or even less. Assuming the KH is of a similarly low level then this indicates to me a very low dissolved CO2 quantity.

In summary – if it works, why fix it?

 

[oldwhitewood]

True, I dont know really. I'm only growing stem plants and e tenellus, moss and ferns, hardly the most challenging of plants, hmmmmmmmmmm I don't know. Maybe I will see what happens when I do my revamp.