My well water is very soft. I have TDS of around 40 ppm from the tap, and my GH is somewhere between 1 to 2 and KH around 2. I don't have highly accurate test equipment, but this is as measured by both Sera wet GH and KH test kits and also a strip test. The TDS reading is from an inexpensive TDS meter from the auction site. Still, everything seems to be giving about the same picture -- very soft water, and this is in line with the USGS water hardness map for my area.
I was having some plant issues in my aquarium, and it was recommended I increase GH, and I was recommended Kents RO Right and Seachem Equilibrium. My aquarium is a 6.6 gallon nano aquarium, and I am doing weekly water changes, so I must continually mineralize my tap water much as if it were RO water to bring it to around 5 GH. I started with Kent's RO Right, but after digging into Kent's RO Right ingredients, I discovered it contains a large quantity of table salt and a very tiny amount of Ca and Mg, so I decided to try Equilibrium, and then I realize that to raise my GH and KH to preferred levels, I'm beginning to push my potassium to high levels due to Equilibrium's potassium content. I was already dosing K as part of EI, but that is surely not necessary if I continue to use SC Equil.
Can I keep using something like Equilibrium over a long period of time without problems? If I get my tank water to 5 GH and I remove 50% of the water and replace with 5 GH water that has been raised 3 dH by Equilibrium, does that mean that the GH and K will never increase but will remain the same? Is there a better way or better products I should be using?
I'm such a newb, I thought it would be great to use Wet's calculator to produce a solution of Equilibrium that I could simply squirt one pump into a gallon of water to raise the GH 3dH. You guys with more experience probably already see the problem. Each squirt is 1.75 mL. The bottle is 400 mL. Of course, that exceeded the solubility by a long shot. Maybe it wouldn't dissolve at all, but I can't even keep all those minerals in suspension. It's rough being a newb, but each hard lesson learned certainly is remembered.
Thanks for any help, guys! I appreciate it.
I was having some plant issues in my aquarium, and it was recommended I increase GH, and I was recommended Kents RO Right and Seachem Equilibrium. My aquarium is a 6.6 gallon nano aquarium, and I am doing weekly water changes, so I must continually mineralize my tap water much as if it were RO water to bring it to around 5 GH. I started with Kent's RO Right, but after digging into Kent's RO Right ingredients, I discovered it contains a large quantity of table salt and a very tiny amount of Ca and Mg, so I decided to try Equilibrium, and then I realize that to raise my GH and KH to preferred levels, I'm beginning to push my potassium to high levels due to Equilibrium's potassium content. I was already dosing K as part of EI, but that is surely not necessary if I continue to use SC Equil.
Can I keep using something like Equilibrium over a long period of time without problems? If I get my tank water to 5 GH and I remove 50% of the water and replace with 5 GH water that has been raised 3 dH by Equilibrium, does that mean that the GH and K will never increase but will remain the same? Is there a better way or better products I should be using?
I'm such a newb, I thought it would be great to use Wet's calculator to produce a solution of Equilibrium that I could simply squirt one pump into a gallon of water to raise the GH 3dH. You guys with more experience probably already see the problem. Each squirt is 1.75 mL. The bottle is 400 mL. Of course, that exceeded the solubility by a long shot. Maybe it wouldn't dissolve at all, but I can't even keep all those minerals in suspension. It's rough being a newb, but each hard lesson learned certainly is remembered.
Thanks for any help, guys! I appreciate it.
