[APD] Help raising GH from 0!

["Laith Arif" <laith at swissonline_ch>]

I've been noticing that my tap water KH has gone down drastically over the
past 6 months; from a high of around 15 to 5 or 6 these days. I usually
don't measure GH but when I did and got a reading of 0 (actually the color
changed after 1 drop so it could be between 0 and 1) I thought the GH test
kit was off.

Today I spoke to my lfs and they said that the local water supply had gotten
a lot softer.  Also I've noticed that some new leaves, especially on my
Alternanthera plants, were growing very small and crinkled.

So, the good news is that I no longer need to use RO water. The not so good
news is that I need to raise the GH of my water...

My tank currently has a KH of 3.5, GH of 0, pH of 6.6.

Off I went to the pharmacy and found a Magnesium+Calcium product (produced
from a "dolomite sand from Norway..."). It comes in the forms of pills, each
of which contains 100mg of Calcium and 60mg of Magnesium. As I didn't want
to raise the KH, I didn't want to go the Calcium Carbonate (CaCO3) route.

So, according to my calculations, 15 of these tablets will raise my GH by
1.05 (200l aquarium)? This based on 1 GH being 7.14mg/l of Calcium?

Therefore if I add 30 tablets, that will raise the GH by 2.1 and will add
9mg/l of Magnesium.

Could someone please double check my calculations and I'd also like to know
if that level of Magnesium in the aquarium is ok?

Many thanks!

Laith



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