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Re: How to maintain high PH/KH with CO2 injection
One BIG item to consider with most AF cichlids: They are bred here. Most, if
not all are given only special treatment *if* they are wild fish. Some
places have hard water and all but they are generally not much harder to
acclimate than *regular* store bought fishes.
A ph of 7.0 to 7.4 or so will easily grow most all of them............ and
with higher KH's and GH's you can still grow plants well in harder waters.
Say a GH of 10 and a KH of 6 to 8 and you'll be fine for many plants.
You'll need to test some to get an idea.
Regards,
Tom Barr
>
>Subject: Re: How to maintain high PH/KH with CO2 injection
>
>on 20/1/00 8:40 pm, Roy Cheok at roycheok at cyberway_com.sg wrote:
>
>> I've been a silent lurker on this list for the past 2 yrs.....and
>> finally coming out of the shell.
>
>Welcome Roy! You've finally spoken :-)
>
>> I intend to setup a planted Africian cichlid (with Altolamprologus
>> Calvus from Lake Tanganiyika). Not too sure if this is possible.....
>> but I've been told that these cichlids do not dig up substrate,
>> do not chew up the plants and generally remain small, being very slow
>> growers. The problem is that the PH/KH needs to be relatively high...
>> compared with the usual acidic waters of the planted aquaria.
>
>Actually, I've been meaning to ask this too. The chiclids I want to keep
>though are known as the shell dwellers ... Neolamprologus Brevis a
>Tanganyikan native as well.
>
>> The question is....is it possible to maintain a high PH of 8 - 8.5, dKH
>> of >8...in a CO2 injected tank that would be optimal (maybe not quite
>> optimal...but acceptable) for reasonable plant growth.
>
>I believe *some* plants can grow in harder waters, vals for instance. I was
>hoping to have the chiclids in my new Emersed Tank (see website for details)
>where the fish would live in about 4 inches of water. The main plant would
>be hairgrass.
>
>> Obviously the injected CO2 will tend to lower the PH and KH...etc, but
>> if I maintain sufficient buffers with the addition of sodium bicarbs,
>> magnesium sulphates, borates...etc (with marine KH buffers),
>> can this be done...to have high PH/KH and yet a reasonable concentrated
>> of CO2 in the water. From the KH/PH/CO2 tables....it doesn't seem to fit
>> ......but I was just wondering of anyone here has played around with
>> this before.....
>
>I guess if we prep the alkalinity to about 6 degrees KH, we should no
>problem right? I was hoping to use Baking Soda (whch I used to use in my
>4-footer). Anyone can help?
>
>
>Mark Pan