Increasing hardness?

nat72sherman

Is 4dkh considered hard or soft water? would i benefit from equilibrium?

Geomancer

Neither, dKH is the carbonate hardness, it is what buffers your pH.

For 'soft' or 'hard' water, you need to know the dGH which is general hardness. Often given in parts per million (ppm), degrees (d), or grains per gallon (gpg).

nat72sherman

it's 4 drops with the api gh test. so 71ppm or something

Byron

That is 4 dGH, which is very soft but close to just soft.

To answer your original question: Presumably you have live plants, so how are they doing now? And what fish are in the tank?

Also, since calcium and magnesium, which are the principal minerals determining hardness, will be used by plants between water changes, I would test the GH just prior to the next water change. This will represent its lowest level, which is what you really want to know in this situation. The water change will bring in fresh water with calcium and magnesium.

Byron.

nat72sherman

Nothing spectacular with the plants. Most are just maintaining. Very little growth. Jungle vals are browning but some new growth. Ther'es some stem plants i forgot the name to is close to dead. I got some Wisteria and some other plant bending over.

Fishes are neon tetras, blue rams, angelfish, honey gouramis, corys, few shrimps, rummy nose tetras.

That reading is a day before a water change.

Byron

I wouldn't expect the Vallisneria to do well at 4 dGH. Wisteria might need more too, being a fast growing plant it will need a good source of calcium.

I read back through this thread to see other data, and noticed we are off on a different tank from the original poster, so now I need more info from you. Are you using any fertilizer, and if so, which and how often? This will help us sort out what may be needed.

I've also removed the relevant posts into a new thread so we won't get mixed up again.

Byron.

jennesque

I just wanted to say that, while I'm not totally sure of my GH yet, I know it's somewhere around 4 too and that vals did not work out at all in my tank. I had slow new growth, but lost the mature leaves to quickly the poor plants were doing so terribly I had to take them out. Although I do not currently have any Wisteria, this plant did do much better in my tank and grew faster than probably any other plant I've experienced (granted, I've got low light so I don't have a lot of fast growing plants). I know I did see some occasional browning on some of my leaves, but I also wasn't using any fertilizer.
If you do start losing the vals, don't give up on the Wisteria. :
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nat72sherman

I've started using Flourish for 2 weeks. I bought some KH2PO4 and KNO3 but haven't started using it yet.

Byron

With your 4 dGH tap water--and assuming you do a regular partial water change every week of 1/3 to 1/2 the tank volume--plus Flourish Comprehensive Supplement once a week, this should be OK.

A photo of the tank/plants might help ID any issues. Also, what is your tank lighting (be specific)?