PH/Flourite question

[KarlTh]

Karl:
It is my understanding that the Calcium hardness (Kh) is included in the General or German hardness (Gh) and hence the Gh will always be equal to or greater than the Kh.

KH is carbonate hardness, not calcium hardness. The way our aquarium tests work is this: GH tests measure the concentration of Mg and Ca ions; our KH tests measure the bicarbonate, regardless of its source. Try it. Put a spoonful of sodium bicarb in RO water. You will find a very high KH with a very low GH.
Generally it works like this:
KH higher than GH - predominant cation: Na, anion bicarbonate
GH same as KH - predominant cation: Mg/Ca, anion bicarbonate
GH higher than KH - predominant cation: Mg/Ca, anion SO4 and Cl

 

[KarlTh]

(Incidently, sorry about missing the +s and -s from the ions there, but for some reason it would only let me post when I removed them)

 

[EMS1]

ok well, I went out at lunch and bought me 15lbs of crushed coral and some handy little white mesh bags to put it in. Thought I'd start with about 1 lb in my sump. Really dont want to go with all the chem adding and such if I can avoid it. We will see what happens.

 

[jones57742]

Karl:

Thanks for your post. The literature which I read several years was incorrect.
I now have a much better feel for what I am testing.


EMS:

Please let us know how it works out.

TR

 

[wesleydnunder]

I would kill to have that water I have liquid rock and run all my tanks with RO water to be able to drop my water to 6 ph.

I have the same liquid rock down here in gulf coast Texas and would also take a life to have the OP's water coming out of my tap. My discus would like it much better, I'm sure.

...I am surprised that your co2 is only pushing down the ph to 6 so there is something in your tank that is buffering it some what...

This is why I thought the OP had to have at least some alkalinity in the water. I have to run around 4bps of co2 in my reactor to drop my ph down a full log from 7.6 to 6.6. My tapwater's KH is 15 to 16.

Mark