KH Drop in New Tank

["Jason Rogers" <jrbruin at yahoo_com>]

Hi,
  I recently changed out my old gravel and replaced it with profile in my 40 gal tank.  The other thing I did was add a piece of driftwood.  Before the change in substrate my KH-PH was typically about pH 8.0 and KH 11 degrees (using Aquarium Pharmacuticals test kit).  It's been set up for 4 days now and I check the chems yesterday and came up with a pH of 7.2 and KH of 4.  I wouldn't even have checked the chems this early, but I started a DIY CO2 injection and wanted to see what the KH, pH, CO2 relationship looked like.  (looks like I need a better reactor, but that's in the works) My question is, could it be the driftwood that is causing the KH drop? I soaked it for three weeks in a bucket, but didn't ever check if the pH of the bucket water changed.  I have read that profile raises KH if anything and there is really nothing else in there that could act as an acid buffer (no peat..).. I have read the nitrification could cause a KH drop, but since it is a new tank (although I kept the same filter media and a few rocks to help the re-cycle) this seems unlikely to me.  Also, I only have three small fish in there and I never saw this KH drop before.. In fact, I've been wishing for more naturally softened water (I hate using chemicals for pH,KH) for a while, so this is kinda nice, but just a little confusing..
  
Thanks,
  J



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