Total Alkalinity

erinw621

erinw621

AC Members
Apr 23, 2009
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In both my ten and twenty gallon tanks, that are cycled, (one with fish and one without) have 0 alkalinity (KH) ppm.
Nitrates, Nitrites, and ammonia all at zero. pH is about 7

I'm using strips until the LFS gets more liquid tests in, but it says the ideal KH is 120-180. What should I do to change this?
 
I had the same problem with my 55gallon.

Solution from members of AC (I think Pappy gave the solution to me- apologies if it was someone else): Bicarbonate of soda (baking soda).

Add it VERY slowly- it's easy to overdose.

Dissolve a quarter of a teaspoon in a couple of cups of water and pour slowly into the aquarium (not all in one spot).

If that's not enough- add another a few hours later.


I've added two teaspoons to my 55 gallon... still not a very high concentration- but I'd rather be on the low end (and close to my tap water) then do too much adjusting.




From what I can tell- if you can get up to about 50ppm you should be fine for almost anything (even if it is below what your test strips say is ideal).
 
If you're at 0 ammonia, 0 nitrite, and 0 nitrate, then what makes you think your tanks are cycled? Are they very heavily planted and/or lightly stocked?
 
erinw621 said:
In both my ten and twenty gallon tanks, that are cycled, (one with fish and one without) have 0 alkalinity (KH) ppm.
Nitrates, Nitrites, and ammonia all at zero. pH is about 7

I'm using strips until the LFS gets more liquid tests in, but it says the ideal KH is 120-180. What should I do to change this?
Click to expand...

Your tank may not be cycled yet unless your tanks are heavily planted OR your test strips are bad. You should see some Nitrates (5-20).

Wait till you get liquid test for KH & GH.
If you really have to boost KH, you can use baking soda or Crushed Coral.
 
0 KH is not normal. unless using Distilled water, RO/DI or something of that nature.

I would retest of verify the information you have given.
are you using Distilled, bottled or filtered water?
what about your source water.. how does it test?
 
Well the color for the nitrates goes from off-white: 0 to pink: 20. It's not pink but its not white... so it's somewhere between 0-20... I wasn't gonna guess so I just said 0. There are no plants, but there's only 6 tetras in the twenty gallon, and no fish in the ten gallon.

I'm hoping the liquid kit comes in today. It's obvious the strips are not the most accurate, but every time I've tested the KH was at 0, so I was just curious how to fix it.

And I use tap water that I treat with conditioner to get rid of the chlorine and everything.
 
I believe her. I've had 0KH in my aquarium.

It's not 0 out of the tap- it's low about 30ppm out of the tap... somewhere between the CO2, fert tabs, and fertilizer it lowers the KH to 0KH (and lowers my pH from 7.8 to 7.0).

Now, I'm testing hardness with strips too- same problem, couldn't find a liquid test for hardness locally- so I'm hoping it's not a strip accuracy problem. When I add baking soda KH goes up- and it is giving consistant results (tap and aquarium) I've tested daily (twice daily some days) for two weeks.

Have you tested your tap water- is it starting out that low? Mine starts out 30ppm from the tap.
 
No fish in the 10 gallon means it isn't cycled, unless you have been adding some other source of ammonia OR the filter media was transferred from another tank and the bacteria has gone dormant.

I'm going to guess that once you get the liquid tests you will get the correct readings. I may be wrong but I wouldn't trust the test strips.
 
Yeah, I have filter media from another tank for the ten gallon. I've been cycling it for awhile to get a couple fish in there.
 
erinw621 said:
Yeah, I have filter media from another tank for the ten gallon. I've been cycling it for awhile to get a couple fish in there.
Click to expand...

If you sure it has been cycled, you have to put some fishes. Otherwise, beneficial bacteria will be gone within two weeks at most due to the starvation.
 
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