Calcium Deficiency ? Barr's GH Booster

Do you know the GH of your tap water? If it's sufficiently high enough calcium shouldn't be an issue anyway. If your tap water has 0 GH (like mine) I don't think 1 tsp of GH booster sounds like enough to bring your GH up on a 55 gallon. I use about 1 tbsp of pure calcium chloride in my 32g (if I'm dosing the whole tank) and that in combination with the same amount of epsom salts only brings my GH up to 20ppm, still really low. GH should be added back in when you do water changes to bring your tap water to the level you want, it's not like other ferts that get used up and need to be dosed regularly based on how fast your plants go through them. Bicarbonate (KH) is the same thing, you don't want to be adding more and more, you want to keep it stable. Most people now agree that it's not needed for plants, only for certain fish sometimes.

 

Well if my memory serves me right, you want to aim for at least around 20 - 30ppm or maybe higher for the plant's sake. I would just add enough GH booster to get yourself up around that level and see what happens. For a reference point, 1 tbsp of epsom salts will bring your magnesium level up to about 8.5ppm in 50 gallons of water. I'm not sure what the ratio is exactly for GH booster because I've never used it but I would imagine that you will need to add a couple of tablespoons to a tank that size if you are starting off with 0 GH. I would stop adding the epsom salts because I think GH booster already has the correct ratios to use by itself, adding more magnesium could throw it off and isn't needed. Then when you do a water change only add the appropriate amount of GH booster, so if you do a 50% water change add 1 tbsp of GH booster etc. to keep things stable for the fish.

 

Carissa,
What is your tank size and how many tsp of epsom do you add to your tank after a WC? Do you add in anything for Calcium? If so, how many tsp? TIA.

 

It's a 32g and I add 1 tsp epsom salts and 1 tsp calcium chloride every 50% water change. Keeps GH from 30 - 60.

 

Ermmm. Mine is a 160g and I'm adding 2 tsp Calcium Sulphate and 1 tsp epsom salt after a weekly 50% WC. I have noticed that leaves of my H.Difformis curled.

Carrisa, with that amount, your adding something like (using Fertilator) 13.16ppm Ca and 3.94ppm Mg. And for me, I am only adding 2.83ppm Ca and 0.79ppm Mg

Should I increase my Ca and Mg ?

 

I don't have any GH in my tap water so what I add is all I get in total. I just did a quick search and found one source that says that you want around 10ppm of Mg and 50ppm of Ca. So I guess I should probably increase what I'm adding too.