Re: [APD] Calcium Carbonate question

[Stuart Halliday <stuart at stuarthalliday_com>]

I believe Jerry Baker wrote this email section below:
> Stuart Halliday wrote:
>> My tank was even more opaque than this.
>>
>> 48 hours later it's looking like a disaster zone.
>>
>> All the surfaces of the plants, gravel, etc. are covered with a thin powder 
>> of white.
> 
> Not to state the obvious, but that means it isn't dissolving for some 
> reason. The cloud you saw in the picture was the result of adding the 
> equivalent of 1/4 teaspoon to 23 liters. I suspect that there is no 
> carbonic acid to react with the CaCO3. It should only take a couple 
> hours at most to consume it all. How high is your KH, or more 
> importantly, your CO2?

Thanks for your comments.

My KH is high at 15-20dh, ph is 7.8-8 and I've no idea what the CO2 level 
is. All the Co2 level graphs I've seen only go up to a KH of 10.

I have a Tetra-plant CO2 depot bottle that I added CO2 via a 5cm long tube 
which is filled twice a day. The Co2 is slowly diffused into the water at 
the top.

Today, after the water changes, the KH is down to 3d and the ph is 6.8 so by 
a co2 chart I came across in the Internet it tells me the level is 15ppm.
GH is still zero. :-)

My big 250L tank reads a GH of 6d as a year ago I put in a couple of 
handfuls of Coral sand to harden it up a little. Maybe I should just do the 
same in the small tank.

The expiry date on the Tetra test strips is Jan 2008.


-- 
Stuart Halliday
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