Water chemistry question

[Yenko]

I'm trying to do two things with my aquarium, grow plants and keep clown loaches. My water is very soft (6 DGH), so I'm adding calcium and magnesium sulfate (both are intended for human consumption, and have no preservatives so they are safe) to increase the hardness to about 10 DGH, which is a good balance between happy clown loaches and healthy plants. I'm adding peat moss to lower my PH, and am wondering if the calcium and the peat moss are neutralizing each other. I'm adding the calcium and magnesium carefully, watching my ph and hardness, so, will the Calcium become useless to plants?

I think the calcium it will still be usable; after all there is still calcium in the water, right?.

 

[Bol]

First, I think you may have two terms confused, GH (general hardness) and KH (carbonate hardness). You may be doing a lot of work for not much benefit.

GH, while somewhat a factor, is (from what I've learned) close to the last thing you should worry about, as far as your plants are concerned. That is, there are probably many more things to get balanced first, before worrying about Ca and Mg.

KH levels, on the other hand, are fairly important in any tank as they can determine what your pH is "driven" to, and to a point, help keep your pH stable.

Out of curiosity, what are your current pH and KH levels?

 

[mrV]

My water is very soft (6 DGH), so I'm adding calcium and magnesium sulfate (both are intended for human consumption, and have no preservatives so they are safe) to increase the hardness to about 10 DGH, which is a good balance between happy clown loaches and healthy plants.

Im alittle bit confused, but why do you want to make even harder water, if you keep soft water fishes? 6° dGH is very good.

I'm adding peat moss to lower my PH, and am wondering if the calcium and the peat moss are neutralizing each other. I'm adding the calcium and magnesium carefully, watching my ph and hardness, so, will the Calcium become useless to plants?

What I have test and heard, turf doesn't lower general hardness. It only lowers carbonates. If GH seems to be lower than normally, you can easily raise it. But like I said before, I don't see any reason to increase it by adding Ca++ or Mg++. You can add them as a fertilizers but not increasing GH.

In all my tank, water is very soft, dGH~3 and plants grow very well. If you had sand on bottom, you can add bottom fertilizers - like clay - and those fertilizers contain needed macro-nutrients too. Clay is very good choice and of course inexpensive too.

That is, there are probably many more things to get balanced first, before worrying about Ca and Mg.

Actually, it is very important although guides don't tell anything about it. When you increase total hardness, you should add both, Ca++ and Mg++ because they affect on fish (cells). And in real world, you should use conductivity meter to measure conductivity because total hardness (GH) doesn't measure cations that have only one + charge, like K+.

 

[Bol]

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that Ca and Mg weren't important -- rather, I think a GH of 6 degrees is probably high enough to be "safe", and so it would probably be more productive to focus on other things (especially KH and stable pH) first. Then, if it's a problem, the GH can be addressed later.

 

[Yenko]

My Ph is 7.0 and my KH is 70 ppm. My Gh is 80 ppm. Mabye its a good point to stop adding stuff. In 2 or 3 months I'm replacing my substrate. I think a soil underlayer with a layer of coarse sand on the top (so my clown loaches can dig) would be best.

Assuming I'm getting a bigger tank (about 75 gallons) in a year or two, would it be a good idea to get a 3rd clown loach now to keep my pair happier?

Edit: I've done water tests alot in the past months, and my PH, GH and KH are stable.