Wannabe Guru
Join Date: Jun 2012
Location: Diatom Alley, Lakeside, OR
Posts: 1,485
Where I live, I have the enviable, ( and highly debatable ..) advantage of having darn near rain water coming out of our taps, although there's a bunch of silicates and tannins. Our water out of the tap is pH 6.3 right now, with about 2 GH and nearly unreadable KH ( tested with API DH/KH test kit.) I have to nearly fully mineralize my water to make it a happier, plant growth conducive environment.
Not sure what the accepted GH/KH optimum balance for most successful planted tanks is, somewhere like a KH of 2~3 and and GH of 4~6...?
I would take having to thin my water with RO over what I have to do right now.
CO2 injection always helps, which because CO2 dissolves to become Carbonic acid, which helps with keeping your tank's pH at a somewhat stable, slightly acid baseline that is always a first good step because of the availability of Ammonium vs. Ammonia at this pH.
Plants will use either form, but they really like Ammonium, it involves less energy to use than Nitrates, also availability of Fe ( ionic iron..) at the hair root level occurs more easily when your water is in the 7.1 to 6.7 pH range. Having the gravel bedded with a good load of beneficial micro critters helps with this uptake of nutrients.
It's a bit of a balancing act, but not a difficult one to maintain once the tank comes 'online'.
These are kind of a basic guidelines for where you want your water chemistry to be to allow the tank to run with nice plant growth, there are other things that come into play, but for basics, *please don't use DI water* it'll throw your pH into wacked out swings and cause nutrient deficiencies.
Starting small, keeping it simple..(?)
250 gallon stock tank, "pond"
20 gallon H CBS Shrimp tank
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