waterdrop
Enthusiastic "Re-Beginner"
Yeah, I agree, its easy to get "talked out" on the subject of KH. It happened once before with my "best practices" thread in the scientific section. So, you're right, would be hard probably even to get people to comment, much less come to much consensus.
What perked up my attention was just that your observations certainly mirrored mine. I spent a pretty long time doing morning and evening KH stats on my tank all through my second fishless cycle period and for a while into having fish, and still do measure periodically. Of course it was the periods of recording lots of measurements that was more valuable. I could get a real feel for how long it was going to take for KH to start dropping, then how quick the drop would be and then for how the pH drop would come following along behind that, it was very interesting.
There really do seem to be some "categories" that the dKH scale could be divided into, but one would need to be clear that the categories could only apply to say, a fishless cycle, or a separate set might apply to a lightly stocked tank and yet a different one to a heavily stocked tank.
So, for example, I might venture that for a fishless cycle:
0-3dKH - Category 1 - This range of KH (Carbonate hardness) respresents buffering so low that the fishless cycle may easily crash from subsequent low pH.
4dKH - Inflection Point - Things could go either way. This KH value could mean pH might crash or might not.
5-9dKH - Category 2 - Much less frequent or no pH crash during fishless cycling.
10+ dKH - Category 3 - Very unlikely pH would crash during a fishless cycle.
This I guess assumes softer water is usually found in conjuction with water of lower pH to begin with, and harder water usually with higher pH, but I don't really know how independent KH and pH are from each other for real instances of tap water in most communities, sigh!
~~waterdrop~~
What perked up my attention was just that your observations certainly mirrored mine. I spent a pretty long time doing morning and evening KH stats on my tank all through my second fishless cycle period and for a while into having fish, and still do measure periodically. Of course it was the periods of recording lots of measurements that was more valuable. I could get a real feel for how long it was going to take for KH to start dropping, then how quick the drop would be and then for how the pH drop would come following along behind that, it was very interesting.
There really do seem to be some "categories" that the dKH scale could be divided into, but one would need to be clear that the categories could only apply to say, a fishless cycle, or a separate set might apply to a lightly stocked tank and yet a different one to a heavily stocked tank.
So, for example, I might venture that for a fishless cycle:
0-3dKH - Category 1 - This range of KH (Carbonate hardness) respresents buffering so low that the fishless cycle may easily crash from subsequent low pH.
4dKH - Inflection Point - Things could go either way. This KH value could mean pH might crash or might not.
5-9dKH - Category 2 - Much less frequent or no pH crash during fishless cycling.
10+ dKH - Category 3 - Very unlikely pH would crash during a fishless cycle.
This I guess assumes softer water is usually found in conjuction with water of lower pH to begin with, and harder water usually with higher pH, but I don't really know how independent KH and pH are from each other for real instances of tap water in most communities, sigh!
~~waterdrop~~
