[FishFinatic]

Well I made the switch to RO based on the insane water parameters from my water supply. I'm using dry ferts (CASO4 and MgSO4) to get the GH where I want it.

What are you using to bring up KH? I know a can do crushed coral, aragonite, buffers, etc but I want to know what you use and why. What do you prefer?

 

[mboley]

Potassium Carbonate here.

 

[Greggz]

Most use either K2CO3 or KHCO3.

I would not use crushed coral or anything that you can't control the rate of release.

You do not need to raise dKH much (or at all), as most all plants prefer lower dKH.

 

[Quagulator]

KHCO3 for me. It adds a lot of potassium even if you are only dosing to 1dKH, so I adjust my other fertilizers to accommodate the extra K.

Some use baking soda - others claim the sodium in it is "bad" but the users of it claim no ill effects (when used within reason of course).

 

[jaz419]

I came up with this myself, so take it with a grain of salt lol.

have a mesh bag of crushed coral that I crammed in a really small HOB filter. I hang that on my 5 gallon water change bucket. And run the filter for 1-3 days before a water change.

Usually get a kh of 2 in the bucket by the time I go to change the water. Keeps my tank pretty stable at a KH of 1-2 all the time.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[zivvel]

I have a bag of K2CO3 and some CaCO3, but now I use nothing and run KH as low as possible. One tank has seiryu stone with adds some KH. But plants like zero KH best of all.

 

[Dreya]

I guess it depends what you are keeping in your RO water, but I really like the Saltyshrimp GH/KH combo product. It reconstitutes at a ratio of 1.0 GH to 0.5 KH, dissolves super fast, gives a 7.0 PH which is a great starting base, and adds only Ca/Mg and the KH (not sure which carbonate it uses). What you add on top of that is going to depend on your substrate and what else is in the tank. It adds no macro/micro nutrients for plants so you will need to fertilize in some way the water column and root bed.

I use it for shrimp and when reconstituted to a 200 TDS, that gives about 6 GH and 3 KH in my tank. For the tetra/barb tank, I shoot for about half that and add peat for the fulvic acids (in filter bag, let it rest in water about 3 days before using for water changes).