need help with kh/gh

[sunnygirl]

what are the normal parameters for kh and gh for mbuna? mine are pretty high: kh 20 degrees, and gh 23 degrees. what can i do to lower it without lowering the ph too much. i use african cichlid lake salt at 2 tsp. per 10 gal. should i reduce the salt content?

[DarthV]

Wow...it sounds like you have liquid rock coming out of your taps...or you have something buffering the water in your tank... maybe the sand/gravel or decorations you are using ? I'm not a big fan of trying to alter water chemistry... sometimes it is better to pick fish that will work in your water...or just see if the fish you have/want will adapt to different chemistries. Most of the time, a stable ph/gh/kh is more beneficial to fish than having wild swings while trying to get your water "just right".

Lake Malawi has a pH between 7.8 and 8.6 and the gH is around 4-6dH...not sure on the kH.

As luck would have it, my slightly alkaline and slightly hard (4-5 dH) works great for the sa/ca cichlids I keep.

You could always switch over to Lake Tang cichlids and have no problems with worrying about your water chemistry. Lake Tang has a slightly higher pH and a much higher gH/kH.

[sunnygirl]

ive got caves made out of lava rock in there. like alot of lava rock. maybe that has something to do with it. im assuming the water was always like that ( i just picked up the test kit:rolleyes: ) they dont seem unhappy. i had one that was shimmying, the ammonia was at .5 ppm., but he stopped that as soon as the level was back at 0. the test kit says to use aquarium peat, but i dont want the ph to go down too much. does anyone know any other ways to lower kh/gh?

[jimbo]

Here's an article on the subject.

http://www.athiel.com/lib/lowrdkh1.html

Or google for "Lowering KH" for some other solutions.

Jimmy

[mogurnda]

The salts you are using are bringing up your hardness. They contain buffers that do just that. If you want your water less hard, add less of the salts. Or maybe stop adding them and see where your hardness goes for the next few water changes. If you add peat or other pH adjusters, you are simply playing dueling additives and driving your fish crazy.

By the way, mbuna thrive in hard alkaline water, so I wouldn't worry about it too much. Just be careful with additives, it's very easy to have a tank seesawing all over the place. Add a little, see the effect, wait a few days to see how it stabilizes, and repeat. The goal is to know exactly how much to get where you want to be.

It may turn out that you don't need to add anything to keep your fish happy.

[famman]

The definitive article on pH/gh/kh

http://www.tomgriffin.com/aquasource/hardwater.shtml

20 degrees is amazingly high, test again? ppm?
good luck
:)

[sunnygirl]

wow. that was a great article. i printed it to keep in my fish journal. it really helped alot. ive realized that you should never add anything to your tank unless you know exactly what is going to happen chemically to your water and fish as a result. learned my lesson. so heres what i propose. im going to do a 25% water change without adding the cichlid lake salt. but i dont know if i should just add treated water, or if i should put regular aquarium salt in it, and if i do use salt, how much should i use? also, im convinced that the lava rock i have in there adds the needed elements to the water. how else does the water in lake malawi get to be hard and alkaline?:cool:

[mogurnda]

My opinion is no salt, no nuthin. Except dechlorinator.

[RTR]

Agree w/mogurnda.

The Rift Lakes are hard and alkaline because the rocks of the Rift Valley are geologically young and leechable, plus the lakes are largely without outlets. The two we deal with the most (Malawi and Tanganyika) have no to trace (Malawi) or only small amounts of sodium chloride. remember, hard and NaCl are not the same thing.

Glad the article helped, it is pretty heavy going.

[sunnygirl]

thanks for all the help guys. ill do the water change either tomorrow or sunday, and ill let you know.

[mogurnda]

I should have asked this in my first post. What's the hardness of the water coming out of the tap?

[sunnygirl]

i dont know-havent tested it yet. ill let you know.