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Thread: Need to lower PH for new plants

  1. #1
    Join Date
    Jan 2022
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    Need to lower PH for new plants

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    My ph stays consistently at around 8.2. I can't lower it no matter what I try - I guess because of the KH and GH. I am putting in new plants that like the ph to be more neutral - like 7.6 or so. how do I get it lowered? By putting in less kh?


    I dose weekly with: KH and sometimes GH, thrive liquid fertilizer, stress coat and zyme



    My water parameters currently:
    PH; 8.0 - 8.2
    KH 7
    GH 7

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Feb 2004
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    Jurong West
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    Re: Need to lower PH for new plants

    I keep observing many planted tank hobbyist having a romance with pH. Fyi, I'm exclusively into the planted tank hobby for more than 20 years. Almost every plant, setup type and hardware I have used and tried.

    What should thing to look out for to achieve success in keeping plants is actually in keeping kH low. Target 1-2 kH.
    Mine is almost less than 1 kH and plant species like Rotala ramosior sp florida, hygrophila sp chai, Eriocaulon Ratnagiri, Thai Fissiden, US fissiden, mini pellia, buceps and stalk plants like Proserpinaca Palustris are able to thrive and multiply.

    These are considered advanced aquatic plants because they are either expensive and rare or needs cooler waters.

    But with all the required hardware, I still failed until I figured out not to be obsess with pH but
    keep kH low. This I accidentally figure out when I gave up on those mentioned plants and went with keeping CRS in my planted tank.

    Focusing on tds at 100-150uS, hence targeting Gh 2-4, kH as low as possible, I see plants like mini pellia starts to thrive.

    After my 2 years failed experiment to successfully have a healthy population of CRS due to the complexity of balancing a healthy planted tank while within CRS water parameter, I decided on trying expensive and rare plants.

    It works. So forget pH, CO2 dose until your fishes looks gasping and dial down. Keep kH low. Use RO water to achieve this.

    I now based my water changes on tds as I know a certain tds correspond to gH and kH values.

    Give it a try. Reduce your kH by doing water changes, best with RO water through RO filter. Get only a Gh,Kh and tds meter. Test regularly with tds meter to determine when to water change.

    Good luck.

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