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Re: Raising KH




On Sat, 10 Jun 2000, Dave Gomberg wrote:

> >The one drawback to using baking soda is that you are adding sodium to the
> >tank along with the buffer capacity.
> 
> And the answer is......potassium bicarbonate.   If you send me a small 
> (50ml) bottle and enough postage to return it to you, I will fill it with 
> KHCO3.   Does anyone else need this product?   It is a LITTLE expensive, 
> but not bad.   Please advise.....

Potassium bicarb is a nice solution, and Dave is making a nice offer.  I
figured that potassium bicarb adds about 14 ppm for each degree of buffer
capacity that you add with it.

Folks on this list report no problems with rather high potassium levels,
but hydroponics literature does warn that potassium needs to be kept
reasonably balanced with calcium and magnesium.  If you plan to use
potassium bicarb to add 3 or 4 degrees of buffer capacity (which would
produce 42 or 56 ppm of potassium) then you might want to make sure that
your water also has a couple degrees or more of GH.


Roger Miller