# Param of water in aquascapes?



## MiZuboov (23 May 2017)

Hallo!
What do you think, what param of water in aquascpapes is optimal?
*Given that I will to use all products of ADA (MH - lightning, additivies, fertiliziers)*
I have RO\DI Spectrapure and I can to make anything parameters of water. 
I want to know dKh, dGh, pH (in the middle of the day, before lightning is on and after lightning is off). 
And also I would like to know what booster I could use to make source water.
I really hope for your helpfull and usefull advices.
Thanks!


----------



## zozo (23 May 2017)

dGh comes from the tap generaly with Calcium and Magnesium desolved in the water, both are no harm and actualy used/needed by plants. So harder water means never a shortage of both.. What is ideal depends on plant and fish sp. but most of them do not realy care for it..

dKh between 4 and 8 is considered very good and suitable for growing plants.

Ideal is, having both stable and if what comes from the tap is acceptable it's better to leave it like that. But both kH and gH bellow 10 is considered OK.
But many people have very satisfying results in a rather wide range of values.. So what realy is ideal is a very personal experience. Not having good results is in general not always and more often not realy related to Gh and Kh values.

Ph goes together with kH and Co2, in the morning before plants start to photosynthezise the pH will be lower and gradualy go up towards the evening because plants use co2 from the water column. So in natural equilibrium there always is a fluctuation during the light cycle. Most tapwater will be between pH 7 and pH 8. Because tapwater is under pressure it contains a bit more co2.. So take some tap water and leave it for 24 hours and measure it again. Than you measure a natural equilibrium in pH (Co2 depletion). This is about the pH likely a few 0.1 units higher at mid day when plants are fully metabolising. Till the lights go out, plants stop and start producing co2 and pH drops again. Bacteria in the substrate also produce co2, so it is depended how this all relates to eachother each tank has it's own unique cycle in this. But you will likely never have any huge swings mainly 0.5 to 1 unit pH difference. In general a pH of 6.5 to 7.5 is considered ideal, but also here same story as the others it can go equaly good at pH 8.5, that 1 unit higher than ideal doesn't realy make a huge noticable difference to write home about. Most fish and plants do not realy care much about it..

Trying to make the best out of what you got, is more ideal to work with more often, than chasing an ideal number and overcomplicate a lot of things with adding boosters and acids to get it and keeping it stable.

Adding pressurized co2 is a complete different story.. Depending on your kH it ca be measured how pH relates to co2 contents in ppm. In general in aquarium is aimed for a 30ppm maximum. Use a KH / pH chart to see where you're at, at 30ppm or less depending on how much you want to add. 
This way you forcefully add co2 at a starting point, lower the pH to a certain degree before the lights go on and keep it at this valua till the lights go out.


----------



## micheljq (23 May 2017)

Sorry, can i intrude?  My tank is an Excel tank with no co2 injection.

Speaking of KH, i keep it currently at 3.  I have seen posts in the past from fellow aquarios saying it is good to have 5 of KH, even 7-9 i have seen in one post.  My question is why?  Should i keep my KH higher (GH is currently at 6).

Does this means that the plants which take carbon from KH, when co2 is gone, will take it easily when KH is higher?

Thank you, Michel.


----------



## zozo (23 May 2017)

The theoriticaly ideal situation is a kH between 4 and 10.. For us kH the only important thing to know is, it buffers acids, 
high kH above 10 the water can buffer a lot of acid and it can become very basic over pH 9 with very little input which is not good. 

kH lower than 4 also can become unstable the other way because it can't buffer so much acid and water can become acidic very easily, it only needs very little acid to drop significantly to a dangerous level bellow 4 which also isn't good.

Not that these things happen all of a sudden, acids etc. do not fall from the sky into your tank.. If you for what ever reason get something  else from the tap, doesn't mean you can't keep an aquarium, if you do you only need to know not to play around with stuff altering the pH. Which is in most cases not a good idea anyway, but that's again a different story, just saying.

I also did read threads where people claim to have kH near 0 and do alright, it seems as they report. As said, it doesn't need to be a problem if you keep anything acidic away from the aquarium water.


----------



## xim (23 May 2017)

Tap water parameters that ADA used as a reference in one of their old articles or news which still can be found here: https://en.roslinyakwariowe.pl/arti...i-ada-aqua-soil-amazonia-africana-malaya.html

pH: 7.6
KH: 2
NH4: <0.01
NO3: 0
PO4: 0.5

The chart in it is also interesting and evident that Amazonia actually absorbs phosphate from the water.

I don't know what is optimum but my tap is close to the parameters above most of the time and it works.


----------



## micheljq (23 May 2017)

xim said:


> Tap water parameters that ADA used as a reference in one of their old articles or news which still can be found here: https://en.roslinyakwariowe.pl/arti...i-ada-aqua-soil-amazonia-africana-malaya.html
> 
> pH: 7.6
> KH: 2
> ...



This is quite like my tap water, pH 7,6 and KH 2.  I was even thinking of adding ADA Malaya to my tank to lower pH, because i have read that a lot of plants like pH of 7 or a little lower than 7.  I am not sure if it is worth the trouble.

Michel.


----------

