Aquasoil lowers KH and GH???

[PeterGwee]

Rescape my tank yesterday with ADA amazonia aquasoil....found out that it lowers GH and KH values. Anybody knows if it will compromise the pH and KH relationship to find the correct CO2 level?

[Simon]

it will lower yr pH to below 6, so I think KH will be 0.. I dun think it with affect Co2 level.. but I'm curious how it works

[PeterGwee]

Simon..I up the KH to 5 from the initial value of less than 1 so as to match the KH of the water being extracted before scaping (fishes being place in that water during rescaping period)....was surprise by the drop today as the KH drop to 2.5 from the upped value of 5. GH was supposed to be 3 drop to 2 today...

Read from Aquajournal that the aquasoil will indirectly neutralize the positive charged ions hence reducing its hardness (don't know whether its KH or GH)..but seems to be both.

[bclee]

GH is positively charged ions (cations): Ca++ and Mg++.

KH are negatively charged ions.

BC

[vinz]

Argh... feel like rescaping my entire 6ft aro tank with Aquasoil. But it also means "rescaping" my finances. [] [] []

[PeterGwee]

Vinz...charles aquasoil is sold out...I took the last bag. (For your 6ft..dunno how many bags you are gonna use leh...break the bank?)

BC...then how come the KH is dropping? Will I still be able to use the pH/KH table to find my CO2 level? Sure hope so or else how? []

[zulnaldo]

vinz,
why aquasoil? why not the nisso soil? anyway, in what ways are these two soils different? care to enlighten anyone?

[hwchoy]

one of them has the amano brand lah.

[vinz]

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On 4/22/2003 12:37:48 PM

Vinz...charles aquasoil is sold out...I took the last bag. (For your 6ft..dunno how many bags you are gonna use leh...break the bank?)

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9 packs for avg of 3 inch substrate. More like "rob the bank".

[hwchoy]

Vinz, why you want to use Aquasoil for your bony tongue tank? I find that it still will cloud the water when stirred hard, although cannot compare with baseferts like JBL. You don't need THAT soft water for bony tongues right?

[vinz]

Cos my fingers itchy. In reality, the fish does not need that acidic and soft water and I don't need to blast another hole in my wallet.

[bclee]

Vinz's wallet is bulging too much and he need to reduce the bulge to fit into his pocket.

BC

[hwchoy]

I offer a professional wallet bulge reduction service, satisfaction guaranteed

[vinz]

It's only full of air from all the holes in it... BTW, we're digressing from the actual topic.

[benetay]

Just to clear some doubts, Aquasoil lowers the pH down below 6 but nisson can only do it at most 6.5.

[PeterGwee]

Haha..so my problem now is finding out if the pH/KH relationship still holds with the use of aquasoil. The pH and KH readings seems to have reached equilibrium after several hrs of aeration using an airpump. The pH is 7.2 and KH is 3.5....CO2 reads 6.625ppm???? Some kind of buffer in the soil? Took a sample of tank water to aerate...pH shoots to 7.9!!! Alamak..which is correct? Wah lau eh...spend so much on a substrate end up with more problems. []

[vinz]

Peter,

Stop CO2 injection and aerate the water. This will bring you back to ambient CO2 levels. Measure the pH and take that as the base value.

Now look up the chart and find out how much pH drops from ambient CO2 levels to target CO2 level for your desired KH. Set your KH and inject CO2 until your base pH drops the same amount. Should give you a good approximation. Maybe bclee or other chem-savvy forumers can comment on this?

I believe the effect of Aquasoil on pH reduces over time... not sure where I read that. Check out theKrib, under plants->fertilisers... there's something about Aquasoil on that page.

[naturetan]

Get a CO2 test kit to verify it?

[Plantbrain]

He's just adding peat to it.

You can do this with your gravel mixes also.
I do this with Flourite. I add it to the bottom 1 inch or so. For an 80 litere tank, perhaps a good handful would be enough.
I add fresh mulm from another tank to seed the gravel bed with bacteria/fungi/organic matter.

Peat does what you are mentioning. ADA soils have peat and I've had one tank with them. Bit light weight for my taste and costly here.

Regards,
Tom Barr

[PeterGwee]

Tom..would I still be able to use the pH/KH table to determine my CO2 despite using aquasoil? (I did do a search on the APD and found somebody had sort of similar problem..you told him that the use of peat would negate the use of the pH/KH table? Hope its not that bad huh..)

Findings as of today morning.
pH= 7.1 (After a whole night of aeration...max it would go up.)
KH= 1 (a big drop from 3.5...guess the peat is eating away the KH?)

Any suggestions I can determine how much CO2 to inject if I am no longer able to use the pH/KH table.

Users of aquasoil for planted tanks care to share your experience on how you set your CO2?

LOL..imagine spending 60 bucks on a substrate only to create trouble for yourself...duhz.