Increase KH While Keeping PH Neutral ???

[Riv D]

I wanted to Increase My KH to 200 but Keep My PH 7.
If I increase my KH won't my PH just naturally go up?
The only solution I came up with was to use crushed coral for substrate and large pieces of drift wood.
I think that makes sense ???

What do you guys think ???

 

[M|L]

increasing kH will increase pH. they're all relative of each other, which means an increase of one will increase the other. but at some point, it stabilizes and high kH will buffer your water from pH changes.

there are several ways of increasing kH, such as adding baking soda.

but please keep in mind that what's worst than a low or high pH or kH is pH and kH constantly changing. if your fish is fine, don't mess with it.

 

[Hawkfish3.0]

Agreed. ^^

Keep in mind that your higher water hardness will also decrease toxicity of nitrites and ammonia. Is that why you're trying to increase kH?

 

[Riv D]

No, I'm not sure if this is going to happen or not but I 'd like to get a Aussie Lungfish
And on George's site Ceratodus.com he lists the water parameters being ...
pH : 6-8
Hardness : 200 - 400
So I'd like to keep my PH @ 7
and make the KH at the low end of 200.
Basically I don't want to stress my other fish out too much.
(RTG,Dat,Front,Uaru)

 

[Riv D]

bump

 

[ar0wan]

What are your kH readings now?
Increasing kH will stabalize pH has stated
and is a great idea because of this
if you see a rise in pH it will stabilize
and fish will adjust to conditions
when they are stable.

 

[M|L]

dude, I don't know if you know, but australian lungfish is probably one of the hardiest fish around. all lungfish are very very hardy and will tolerate less than ideal conditions.

so why don't you just listen to us and forget about fiddling with your water chemistry? you'll end up doing more harm than good.

 

[Bderick67]

increasing kH will increase pH. they're all relative of each other, which means an increase of one will increase the other. but at some point, it stabilizes and high kH will buffer your water from pH changes.

there are several ways of increasing kH, such as adding baking soda.

but please keep in mind that what's worst than a low or high pH or kH is pH and kH constantly changing. if your fish is fine, don't mess with it.

This is not always true, My tap water has a pH of 7.4 and the carbonate hardness(kh) is 50ppm or below. I add Seachem Neutral Regulator and it will drop the pH to 7.0 and raise the kh into the 100 or 120ppm range.

 

[M|L]

I've never used commercially available agents in my tank, but I'd guess that those are specifically formulated to achieve a specific purpose, therefore, the scientists who invented this stuff probably goes into much greater detail than most of us would care to know.

But in the general term, adding coral will increase your water's pH as well as hardness and alkalinity. Adding the bogwood won't decrease the pH because of the increased buffer in the water as the result of the higher kH.

So, yes, I guess if you're some kind of water chemist, then there's a way to do it, but that's way beyond my understanding.

 

[Riv D]

This is not always true, My tap water has a pH of 7.4 and the carbonate hardness(kh) is 50ppm or below. I add Seachem Neutral Regulator and it will drop the pH to 7.0 and raise the kh into the 100 or 120ppm range.

Interesting but I guess I'm looking for a natural way to achieve this.
Thanx.