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Re: WHY Calcium carbonate as KH buffer
- To: Aquatic-Plants at actwin_com
- Subject: Re: WHY Calcium carbonate as KH buffer
- From: "Louis Lin" <lhclin at aw_sgi.com>
- Date: Tue, 16 Jun 1998 10:44:27 -0400
- In-Reply-To: Aquatic-Plants-Owner at actwin_com (Aquatic Plants Digest) "Aquatic Plants Digest V3 #328" (Jun 16, 3:48am)
- References: <199806160748.DAA08786 at acme_actwin.com>
You got it reversed, calcium chloride does not affect KH, but will
increase GH. As a pH buffer, you need the carbonate ion that is
in calcium carbonate.
Sodium bicarbonate should be your choice of buffer if you want an easy
to dissolve buffer. The only draw back is you will accumulate the
sodium ions in the long term. Depending on your water changing method
and buffer addition, this may or may not be acceptable.
Louis Lin
Christopher Coleman wrote:
>I am in the process of adding a CO2 solution to my planted tank. =
>Currently
>I buffer GH and KH with sodium bicarbonate (NaHCO3) for KH and
>calcium chloride (NaCl) for GH.
>
>Is there a reason why the CO2 posts here frequently make reference to
>calcium carbonate (CaCO3) as a KH buffer? Is there any benefit to using
>calcium carbonate over calcium chloride?
>
>I prefer my current method simply because the calcium chloride effects =
>KH
>without effecting GH. and because it dissolves very rapidly with water.