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KH buffering.
Hi,
Looking for comments, suggestions, and/or advice. I have a 40g that I have
been running for a little more than a year with decent success. But some
plants only seem to survive and not thrive, plus I have an occasional algae
problem that I think could be lessened if the plants were taking up the
nutrients faster. To achieve this I want to start adding supplemental CO2
but I have a small problem.
First some info.
40gal breeder. Temp 77 50% water changes
every 1-2 weeks
120 watts fluorescent. 11 Hour light period. Trace
fertilizer added 1/week
Medium to Heavy fish load. Canister Filter bio/mechanical filtration.
No chemical filtration.
Anubias barteri Sagittaria platyphyla
Anubias lancelota Aponogenton crispus
Anubias nana Hydrocotyle leucocephala
Vesicularia dubyana
My substrate is a kitty litter/fluorite mix. The kitty litter
substantially keeps my pH at the lower end of the scale. It seems to do it
by lowering the GH and KH. My tap water measures at 5 GH, 2.5 KH, 7.5 PH. My
tank water measures at <=2 GH, 0 KH, <=6.0 PH. This soft acidic water has
been wonderful for my tetras but I have no buffering capacity to balance out
CO2 injection.
Is there a method by which I can keep a constant or slowly rising
KH? I know I could use Baking Soda to increase buffering but I don't want to
get into swings by using a positive feedback method (measure/change/repeat).
Is there something I could add, say in a bag in my filters that would slowly
raise the KH over time until it reaches a balancing point between the kitty
litter and water changes reducing it. I know that a calcium carbonate
source, such as crushed shells in my filter will add to the GH, but I'm
looking for something that targets the KH only or at least has minimal
effect on the GH.
Personally I would like to break the whole thing down and move to a Fluorite
only substrate and see how that does but $$ are limited.
Thanks in advance.
C. Michael Tipton
BB&T Online Banking Services
Client Server Systems Analyst
Phone: (919) 716-9318
Email: MTipton at BBandT_com