crushed coral

[Deneault]

ive got a 200 gal tank, how much crushed coral would it take to raise my ph about 2 full levels?

 

[DoctaQ]

depends on a lot of things
you gotta try n see

it depends on how high your ph is already, and how hard your water is

if youre just trying to raise ph without raising hardness you can use alkalinity buffer by seachem, but that will only get you up to a certian level though

 

[Deneault]

i knew a straight answer would be had to get. heres what i wanna do. i wannaraise my ph from about 6.5 to atleast 8. so that in 1-2 weeks when i add my co2 it will lower it back down abit to around 7ish, the ideal level... i forget what my hardnes is... im gonna go buy a bucnh and add it prob tonight, so even a rough guess would help

 

[toddnbecka]

You shouldn't need more than a handful if you place it in a filter with a constant flow of water over/around it. However, crushed coral won't raise the pH to 8, more likely 7.4-7.6 will be the limit. It will definitely raise the Gh and Kh, and should buffer the pH higher than 7 even with CO2.
What is the purpose of maintaing it at 7 anyway?

 

[KarlTh]

You don't raise pH; you raise KH. Without knowing the KH it's extremely unwise to mess with the water chemistry.

 

[itsanobsession]

ive always added the african cichlid gravel mix to most of my tanks. my water would routinely drop to 6.0. i threw in maybe a large nets worth of gravel in all my tanks and it buffered it to around 7.0-7.2.

i consider it the best buffer if ur trying to raise pH.