Re: KH and pH

["Jennifer Marshall" <zephyr18 at ev1_net>]

.
>
> Something is dragging your KH down from a tap level of 3-4. Questions:
>
>     1. How frequent are your water changes, and what percentage?
>     2. What is your plant load-what percentage of the gravel is covered
> with plants?
>     3. What kind of plants?
>     4. How many and what kind of fish?
>     5. What else do you add to your water, if anything?
>     6. Although this would drive KH up, do you have shells,
>         beach sand, limestone decorations or anything similar?
>

Thanks for responding Dave.  I'm glad to know that I'm not just neurotic -
at least not as pertains this particular topic!  Here are the answers to
your questions:
1. I do about about 1/4 water change every week.
2. I have a moderate amount of plants - about 2/3 of the gravel is covered
with plants
3. My plants include: annubias, hemianthus, vallisneria, red lotus, two
different echinodorus, 2 different aponogetons.
4. I don't have many fish at this point - just 3 black skirt tetras, 2
ottos, 1 pleico, 1 Siamese algae eater, 1 Bolivian ram, and 1 other South
American ciclid.
5.  I don't add anything else to the water except the shmidgen of baking
soda per gallon of water and an occasional fertilizer
6.  nope - just some slate, granite, and driftwood.

I hope this gives you some useful information.  I'm thinking maybe I just
need to add more baking soda and/or more fresh water with water changes and
also figure out more exact measurements and a better system for keeping the
KH level constant. Hmmmm.

Thanks,
jen