Water Numbers

[Neptune350]

Still cycling my mbuna tank and just tested the water. My numbers were:

pH 7.2
KH 5
GH 7

Can I get by with these numbers (meaning will the fish I eventually get be happy) or should I do something to raise them?

 

[yhbae]

pH seem a little on the low side. How well is your water aerated? Given your KH value, it should be possible to raise your pH by simply aerating more (i.e. remove some dessolved CO2) to get higher pH. If you hit around 7.5 or 7.6, most of the mbuna are supposed to be ok...

 

[Neptune350]

Was thinking about the bakingsoda trick to raise the ph to 8.2 but I did not know what else that might effect. Don't really know much about KH and what to do to alter it. My GH is also alittle low (I was shocked) and I don't know what, if anything, I should do.

 

[yhbae]

If you do want to mess with your water chemistry, I'd recomend using the combination of baking soda and epsom salt. You should experiment by adding them into a bucket of water (2gal?) to see what effect they will have. Since baking soda is incapable of reaching beyond pH of 8.2, it is easy to reach there - the question is how to stablize KH and GH. My goal is to reach around 10 for both and so far, it is working. No point posting my numbers since your tap water parameter is different from mine...

 

[mrV]

You don't need to make that water any harder.

GH is about 4,5 and KH about 6,5 in lake of Malawi. So you don't need harder water. pH is little over 8. So adding baking soda increase KH and pH. Then your water should be "perfect" by numbers... But...

You also should consider conductivity too. It's about 250 uS/cm in that lake. Osmotic pressure is key idea consider conductivity and adding trace elements to water. If conductivity is high, osmotic pressure is large and fish need more energy to survive in this envinronment. And when it suffering wrong water (although everything seems to be excellent), fish gills/kidneys... are doing extra work all the time - and eventually fish may become sick.

More data about lake of malawi (from drak.de)

 

[Neptune350]

Could you explain conductivity? I've never read anything about it so I don't know what it is but thanks for the tip.

 

[yhbae]

Yes I'd like to know more about conductivity as well - how would you measure this in your own tank?