KH & PH too high

[escahmo]

Reading from my tap water: kH 2dh, pH 7.8

Reading from my tank water (yesterday): kH 11dh, pH7.2, GH 1dh so my Co2 is around 22PPM

My kH and pH seem to be too high can anyone help?????
Any way to bring down kH???????

Reading from my tank water (today): kH 10dh, pH6.8, GH 1dh so my Co2 is around 50PPM

Today reading is worse.... Should i stop the Co2 injection????? But fish seem ok .

Think will affect my plant too..

[juggler]

Do you have things like coral chips in your substrate or filter media?
They introduce kH that gets higher with CO2 injection.

[geoffrey]

pH varies depending on what time it was measured too. pH tends to be low before light turns on and high before light turns off.

Yes, do you have any coral or carbonate added? And how frequent do you do water change?

[limsteel]

Jugg... I have place a bag of Coral Chip in my filter and found that my KH & GH are over 10degree mark... the PH value is above 7.5... You think I should remove the Coral Chips.

[juggler]

Lim:
Maybe put a little coral chips to sustain a kH of about 2~4? My kH is about 5 and pH usually 7.0 or more.
My thoughts are that if plants and fish are doing well. I leave it alone.

[escahmo]

I dont have coral chip. I am using a internal wet/dry filter. Medium consist of:
--------TOP-------
------------------
--Coarse sponge --
--ceramic ring----
--medium sponge---
--Eheim subtrate--
--fine sponge-----
------------------
-----BOTTOM-------

Water flow in from top and out from bottom.
BTW i took my read at night before light off.

[sherchoo]

Check your tap water... it's probably coming from your source. Anyway, I won't be too worried with your kH.

[escahmo]

My tap water pH is 7.8 kH is 2dh

[geoffrey]

What kind of gravels are you using as substrate? Do they have bits and pieces of corals or shells? And, do you use any rocks for your scaping? What type are they? Lastly, do you add baking soda?

[bclee]

From your readings, you have pretty high KH but very low GH. So it is unlikely that it come from coral chips or even the substrate.

Have you added any pH buffers like pH up or pH down or pH regulators/modifiers? Is there any other additives that you have added?

These will add onto your KH readings.

BC

[escahmo]

bclee- My gravel is just normal sand only those brown mixed type. I do not add and buffer or additive.

recently the pH drop to 6.8 but the kH is still around 10dh so my CO2 is around 50PPM. Really can't understand the flucuation of mt pH. Thought high kH is to stablize my pH???

[bclee]

pH fluctuate according to the CO2 level. KH will prevent the pH from crashing but will not prevent fluctuation.

30ppm of CO2 will drop the pH from ambient level by about 1.5 to 1.8 regardless of KH (as long as KH >0). You can check the CO2/KH/pH chart.

In your senario, all I can think of is that your substrate may contain some carbonates. After a number of water changes, the KH level should lower.

Your KH kit seem alright, since your tap water reading is about KH2. But then our tap water ranges from KH0-3. If the actual tap water is KH1 and you get KH2, your kit is 50% off and your reading of KH10 may be just KH5. Well... just speculations.

BTW, KH 10 is not too worrying. Most plants and fishes would tolerate it.

BC

[escahmo]

High kH is ok. But i need to lower the pH for my plant to grow well. so mean i need to reduce my CO2 injection right?????

I change my water weekly about 20%. and due to evaporation i add about 5% of water daily.

Last time use to have coral chip in my filter but removed long long ago.

My DIY CO2 got add baking soda, could that be the problem?????????

[CoryDorus]

CO2 Injection lower pH.

[aizaspurz]

Hi everyone....

To bclee... you were saying that a kH of 10 is tolerable by the fishes and plants.

Phew! I actually panic when my kH shot to 8 cos I read from somewhere that a kH of 3 to 4 is best cos that's when the dissolved CO2 is easily absorbed by the plants.

However, I'm still trying to lower the kH of my tank. Thanx for sharing.