You can find KH/GH kits on line in all of the usual places. If I recall correctly, I got mine at e-bay but it may have been at one of the on line pet shops instead. My local pet shops simply do not carry a KH/GH test kit ever so I had no choices. It is an interesting thing to be able to test but, as WD said, it is hardly a necessity, which may be why I could not source it locally.
Baking soda is indeed an easy quick fix during a cycle but I avoid such things once I have fish in my tanks. The only thing I do to control pH in a fish-in situation, before or after being cycled, is to do a water change. As long as your tap water is even close to the fish's requirements, like within 1 or 2 pH units, the chances are good that your fish will do better adapting to your tap water than by having you mess around trying to change things. I have tap water at 7.8 pH but regularly keep fish reputed to like water at 6.5 to 7.0 pH. The fish thrive in my tanks with nothing more than regular water changes and good feeding. Looking at things realistically will help. A fish in the wild in a river that has lots of plants growing sees water much higher in pH at sunset than at sunrise and goes through that movement daily. In the morning, the CO2 content of their water is high because the plants and fish have been giving off CO2 all night through respiration. During the day, the plants will use every scrap of CO2 they can get hold of and will effectively reduce the water's CO2 content to zero. That CO2 move removes the acidic effect of the CO2, carbonic acid, and makes the pH rise almost a whole unit, say from 6.5 to 7.5. The fish ignore the change and go right on with their daily lives of eating whatever they can find in their environment to eat and producing fry by laying eggs or even as livebearers. The newborn fry also have no trouble at all with the swings in pH.
What we often see as a preference for one or another pH more often reflects the ignorance of our predecessors. They could easily measure pH so it is something they recorded. They could not easily measure things like total dissolved solids, TDS, so that was not recorded for native waters. What we ended up knowing was that fish that inhabit waters composed mostly of rain water had a low pH. What we failed to have recorded was that those same waters were very low in mineral content, now expressed as TDS or even on a cruder level as GH. Fish well adapted to low mineral content waters were identified as being low pH fish. Fish from waters originating mainly from deep sourced springs often measured high pH and nobody seemed to recognize that was the result of the limestone that the water had passed through. Again the pH was recorded, because it was easy to measure. These high pH fish were really fish that do best in waters full of minerals. Once you get your arms around the real meaning of traditional water measurements, you will be in a position of judging your own water and its ability / suitability for particular fish. I live in an area that is fed mainly from deep wells and is very high in mineral content. My best bet is fish reputed to like a high pH, and I have found that all such fish really do well in my tanks. In your case, you are seeing the tiny traces of nitrates bounce your pH around. To me that means your water is low in mineral content and you should do great with fish reputed to love a low pH. The pH itself is almost immaterial, the low mineral content will best define the fish most suited to your water
.
Baking soda is indeed an easy quick fix during a cycle but I avoid such things once I have fish in my tanks. The only thing I do to control pH in a fish-in situation, before or after being cycled, is to do a water change. As long as your tap water is even close to the fish's requirements, like within 1 or 2 pH units, the chances are good that your fish will do better adapting to your tap water than by having you mess around trying to change things. I have tap water at 7.8 pH but regularly keep fish reputed to like water at 6.5 to 7.0 pH. The fish thrive in my tanks with nothing more than regular water changes and good feeding. Looking at things realistically will help. A fish in the wild in a river that has lots of plants growing sees water much higher in pH at sunset than at sunrise and goes through that movement daily. In the morning, the CO2 content of their water is high because the plants and fish have been giving off CO2 all night through respiration. During the day, the plants will use every scrap of CO2 they can get hold of and will effectively reduce the water's CO2 content to zero. That CO2 move removes the acidic effect of the CO2, carbonic acid, and makes the pH rise almost a whole unit, say from 6.5 to 7.5. The fish ignore the change and go right on with their daily lives of eating whatever they can find in their environment to eat and producing fry by laying eggs or even as livebearers. The newborn fry also have no trouble at all with the swings in pH.
What we often see as a preference for one or another pH more often reflects the ignorance of our predecessors. They could easily measure pH so it is something they recorded. They could not easily measure things like total dissolved solids, TDS, so that was not recorded for native waters. What we ended up knowing was that fish that inhabit waters composed mostly of rain water had a low pH. What we failed to have recorded was that those same waters were very low in mineral content, now expressed as TDS or even on a cruder level as GH. Fish well adapted to low mineral content waters were identified as being low pH fish. Fish from waters originating mainly from deep sourced springs often measured high pH and nobody seemed to recognize that was the result of the limestone that the water had passed through. Again the pH was recorded, because it was easy to measure. These high pH fish were really fish that do best in waters full of minerals. Once you get your arms around the real meaning of traditional water measurements, you will be in a position of judging your own water and its ability / suitability for particular fish. I live in an area that is fed mainly from deep wells and is very high in mineral content. My best bet is fish reputed to like a high pH, and I have found that all such fish really do well in my tanks. In your case, you are seeing the tiny traces of nitrates bounce your pH around. To me that means your water is low in mineral content and you should do great with fish reputed to love a low pH. The pH itself is almost immaterial, the low mineral content will best define the fish most suited to your water
.
Regardless the 4.0 ppm of Am is cycling all the way through in 12 hours as of today. Very exciting!
