With the chlorine, chloramine and high tds in our water I just want to start with a clean slate rather than trying to treat tap water.
Before adding ferts, what is the best way to remineralize to get me back to a good baseline?
I'll be making batches of 50 gallons at a time so would like to mix right in my storage tanks.
A lot of the answers you will receive will be personal preference. There are many remineralizers on the market and many ways to achieve your goals. DIY salt mix like @somewhatshocked has posted about in his journals. Equilibrium (sometimes met with opposition), Gh/kh boosters, salty shrimp etc. Really I suppose this depends on what your ultimate aim for parameters are in the end. Bicarb soda and dry salt mix may be the cheapest and most controlled method available.
Definitely read some of the more experienced planted tankers journals with custom ro/di setups.
Thank you. I think this is probably what I was imagining... some kind of dry mix.
Would be nice if someone offered a big 5g bucket of dry mix, with all needed ingredients, like you see with Saltwater mix. I'd pay a little more for that vs having to source the individual elements.
Bump: Oh and the choice between khco3 and k2co3... what do I need to base my decision on for that?
K2CO3/KHCO3 readily available lots of places including Amazon.
And second everything Quag said above.
The advantage to having separate compounds is that you can custom tailor to your needs. For instance, I dose to Ca 34 and Mg 17. So you can experiment over time to see what is best for your particular tank.
It's also more cost effective, and you are not loading up on excess K, which is in every premixed GH booster.
A few posts up (the last one i quoted by Quagulator) says to mix to 0.5-1.0 degree. Is degree dKH? I only know kh being referred to in ppm, dkh or meg/l
The Rotala Butterfly calculator asks for a target in ppm.
I was actually just wondering if there was a different option than Seachem Equilibrium but this thread just confused me even more. I like Seachem's relatively straightforward instructions for GH, KH, and pH.
@d2creative: The substrate you're using will lower whatever kH you're adding to the water. So I don't think you should focus on or add any kH at all. There may be some critters that won't work for you but I don't think that's a bad thing. A lot will certainly be fine.
@Triport: There are tons of options - not just from Seachem. There are products from companies like SaltyShrimp that have mineral salts for shrimp and fish. And some people, like myself, make their own GH+ mixes that are tailored for dwarf shrimp. Cheap and relatively easy to do with a $10 scale.
.....
I think it's important to keep in mind that there are some species that are sensitive to kH levels, so tanks need to be designed around parameters in those instances. In this particular case, that substrate is gonna drop Dennis' kH to 0 pretty much instantly and lower pH to 6 or less.
In this case, just remineralize gH, Dennis. Your tank will be stable on the pH/kH front without adding anything because of your substrate. The wood you've added to the tank is also going to release tannic acid and also help soften the water.
Your tank is going to be really easy to maintain as far as non-fert water parameters are concerned. Easier than you initially thought.
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