hey, all. I read somewhere that you can use baking soda to raise the kH and lower the pH, is this true? how much should I dose on my 10G and how often?
can I use baking soda to raise kH and lower pH?
- Thread starter fishcatch22
- Start date
really? I though it lowered it..... i've been trying to lower the pH because I plan to spawn my rasboras (10G fry tank and large wide leafed java fern coming soon), and I have a planted tank so I suppose raising the kH would be good, right?
baking soda is sodium bicarbonate. carbonate raises pH ... it cannot lower it. moreover, baking soda adds sodium to your water.
i'd strongly urge you to leave your pH alone and not add chemicals to your water. playing with your water chemistry almost always leads to instability and big problems you don't want.
i'd strongly urge you to leave your pH alone and not add chemicals to your water. playing with your water chemistry almost always leads to instability and big problems you don't want.
well yeah... that is logical and I thought that much... but I swore I once read on a page that a man who was breeding checkerboard cichlids that he said he used bicarbonate of soda to lower pH.
I know that a stable pH is a good pH. I was just wondering. I was planning to just use softener pillows and use melted snow.
melted snow? not a good idea either. depending on where you live, snow can contain a significant concentration of acid (acid rain/snow) and picks up alot of impurities on the way to earth.
you're overthinking this.
you're overthinking this.
well, it seems fine enough as i've been using it for a while now to see if it would be harmful or not, as the water out out of my tap is about 8.2 and i've heard of folks using rainwater/melted snow to do WCs on their tanks before if they have very hard, alkaline water.
Ya melted snow would most likely be quite acidic fishcatch and most likely have lots of other bad stuff in it as well. If you really want to lower PH use peat in the filter but it may also lower KH not sure.
