# Should i add GH/KH booster



## Daryn (5 Nov 2008)

Hi all, my tanks 14-8-8 inch, lighting is 27W T5PC, CO2 is light green using 4dKKH in the drop checker, sera substrate, and im using the All In One fertiliser from the link on this website dosing at 4ml daily with 50% water change at least once a week, lighting is on 10 hours, phosphate from the tap is 2.5 with a PH of 7. The background plants in my tank are slightly out of shape and think its a calcium deficiency, the only plants that dont seem effected is my glosso. The tap water has a GH of 60ppm and a KH of 20-30ppm but the tank has a GH of 140ppm and a KH of under 10ppm so what is going on, going by pics of deficiencies i would say this is deffo calcium or boron but since ive changed to the all in one fertilizer its not got any better so suspect its got to be calcium. All help greatly appreciated.


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## Egmel (13 Nov 2008)

I'd say try it and see, it wont do any harm and it sounds like it might just help.  

Snails and shrimp all use calcium from the water to build their shells.  If you've got these in competition with your plants then you could be using up the allowance in your tap water.

Personally mine is at the other end of the scale, I have tap water with CaCO3 at 280ppm+!


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## Daryn (13 Nov 2008)

Thanks alot for the reply, no shrimp or snails just plants and a male betta, i was thinking if i done a couple of large scale water changes then started adding something to stabilize the GH/KH it might help, or i was going to add calcium right into the tank, i will try getting the GH/KH stuff first and if that doesnt show any signs of improvement i will get the calcium from AE but since i dont know anything about plants im not really sure what will happen if i do this LOL.


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## Egmel (14 Nov 2008)

It might be worth asking about this in the fertiliser section too, it gets more traffic than this section.


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