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Permanent hardness is not the same as General hardness which should more accurately be called “Total Hardness” as it was mistranslated from the German “Gesamthärte“ meaning Total hardness. The term “Total” makes more sense as GH is the sum of carbonate and non carbonate hardness. TH=CH+NCH. See...

I have just purchased the stainless steel flat plate heat exchanger I mentioned earlier in this thread. I don't know how well it will work in my application. I will post results here when I have them.

Sorry to tell you I don't think this would work..! I'm no expert but my initial thoughts are... Any heat you manage to extract from the radiator/pipework would be automatically made up for by the boiler and so would come at a cost. The efficiency of heat transfer would be so low it would be...

It would be the former as any heat exchanged is coming from the overflow from the tank.

No it is water cooled. Hot wort runs through in one direction and cold water from the tap in the other direction. It has the effect of cooling the wort but must also heat the water so my thought was this could be used for heating or cooling according to need. But I'm going off the idea due to...

With a bit more googling I found the home brew hobby use heat exchangers for cooling wort so I'm thinking maybe these would work in my application...

With the rising cost of energy in mind it occurred to me that a heat exchanger could help in the context of my continuous flow WC system. Unfortunately I know nothing about the subject but after a bit of googling I have a vague idea of coiled copper pipe inside a larger vessel. Hoping someone...

Some months back I bought these test strips off Amazon... At the time I was interested in checking for any evidence of chlorine coming out of the inline carbon block filter attached to my DIY auto water change system. I wasn't interested in accuracy so much as ensuring chlorine levels were zero...

UPDATE Well the bag I bought Pets At Home Non Clumping Clay Cat Litter 20L turned out to be completely unsuitable. You could rinse it till the cows come home and never get the dust out of it. I put it in a small empty tank to see how it would do and it just turned into a sort of sludge with bits...

Thanks Darrel, that's very reassuring. :)

I recently became aware that cat litter can be used as an aquarium substrate. This interested me as I wanted to increase the height of my existing fine gravel substrate only to find it's out of stock. So my thoughts turned to maybe getting something cheap to go underneath the existing gravel. So...

My 350 fouls the shelf. Currently standing on floor in front of cabinet..!

Just a heads up to check it will fit in the cabinet. I got a Biomaster for my Fluval Roma 200 only to find it fouled the shelf inside the cabinet..!

I just purchased some PVC clear hose for use with my DIY water change system. It was advertised as suitable for aquarium use but has a very strong unpleasant smell. I notice the hose supplied with my cannister filters does not suffer from this so I assume there exists a more suitable...

Thanks Darrel, that helped a lot.

I saw mention of chloride when googling and stupidly misread it as chlorine so thought it would gas out leaving just the ammonia. Can I ignore the chloride content or will it distort my ammonia test kit results? Just to be clear I'm carrying out these experiments in just a tank of water. no...

So I have purchased a quantity of 99.5% Ammonium Chloride. I'm thinking I will end up with a total ammonia solution if I add some to distilled water. Now it comes to doing it I thought I might just check here first as I'm no chemist. I want to use the resulting ammonia to test Seachem's Ammonia...

Thanks for that. This helped in as much as it precisely specified exactly what to enter as the total ammonia value. i.e. "Total (NH3+NH4)-Nitrogen Concentration (mg/L)" As near as I can figure (as a non chemist) that is the same form as returned by my NT Labs test. If anyone knows better please...

Hi Darrel, many thanks for your detailed reply. I got the 1.12 figure from this article. However if I was a betting man and going by past experience I'd put my money on you being right. LOL I get that there is total ammonia and free ammonia (which I think is NH3?) but as usual with chemistry...

NT Labs say their ammonia test results are expressed as nitrogen content rather than concentration of ion. If I want the concentration of ion I have to multiply by 1.12. I am plugging the test result into the free ammonia calculator I found here. My question is... What type of result is the free...

I'm still messing around with this siphon but I can confirm that you were absolutely right about it being the venturi effect that was causing the air to be sucked in. Rather than put the hole directly in the airline I had (without giving it much thought) cut the airline where I wanted the hole...

:D:D:D

Two advantages that instantly come to mind are... It smooths out the sawtooth effect you get with regular water changes and removes the need for manual water changes. I think the reason it's not so popular is the big downside if your tanks are in your home as apposed to a fish room. Namely...

I was both surprised and disappointed at the supposed general lack of interest in something that I found very interesting and exciting. It seemed to me that I had found something both new and novel which exhibited characteristics worth further investigation. Were this simply a siphon with a hole...

Self Governing Siphon I discovered this (new to me) strange siphon effect quite by chance. There is nothing new under the sun but I have not seen mention of this before. See Video What I have found? You can create a “self governing siphon” by simply placing a small hole (less than 1mm for...

The more I think about it the more suspicious I get that this is simply some kind of marketing ploy and that there is no real difference. Other than on the cardboard box I can find no mention of "Pond" anywhere else on the product. The airtight tubes contain the strips are identical as are the...

I still had one old aquarium test strip left so I just dipped that and one of the pond ones in the same aquarium and got exactly the same results. Not an iota of difference.

For anyone interested I got a reply from Tetra as follows... "Please do not use the Tetra Pond 6 in 1 test test kit for your Aquarium. Pond water differs from aquarium water and the pond testing kit has been formulated to react with pond water, not aquarium water. Using the Pond testing kit for...

Sorry I should have been clearer... I think test strips have their place... I was just trying to save anyone bothering to tell me they suck. :) I'm going to go for the pond ones then. Can't see how the chemistry should be different but just thought I'd check here first. Thanks for comments. Ed

Can anyone tell me what is the difference (if any) between the Pond and Aquarium variety? I ask as I'm about to purchase for use in my aquarium but the pond one is cheaper..! Oh and I already know test strips suck so no need to tell me again. lol

Thanks Darrel, Yes I am concerned that I can't rely on the chlorine being supplied always remaining at current low levels. So if only for peace of mind I am going to install an inline carbon filter. Currently have my eye on... .

Thanks for all the input... My current thinking is that it's probably safe to dilute Safe or Prime so long as it's used within 48 hours. It maybe it's okay to store it indefinitely but I don't feel so confident on this. However 48 hours is enough to make dosing via peristaltic pump a practical...

That's really interesting and would certainly solve my problem if true. Will be interested to hear what others think...

Wow didn't expect such a quick reply this time of night :) Thankyou. I did think of this but having read and old post in another forum by a Seachem employee saying not to dilute Prime as it may spoil over time I went off the idea. I did get the impression however that it would be fine up to 24...

I am experimenting with a DIY drip auto water change system. Currently I am not adding any kind of de-chlorinator just dripping tap water straight into the tanks. So for example my 200L gets about 4L of fresh (tap water) per hour (96L per day) and the same amount is removed via a kind of self...

It's always worth previewing your posts before submission. lol

Just for completeness it's probably worth my mentioning that the Inkbird units referred to earlier can also control both heater and fans for automatic cooling.

I agree it is over temperature due to heater getting stuck on that is the major worry. I also have an Inkbird but mine doesn't have any fancy wifi app but does sound an alarm in the event of over or under temperature. In the event of an over temperature I do as many 10% water changes as it...

Thanks for reply. I'm going with the root tabs. Thanks again, Ed

I just bought some and am wondering if it will grow ok in just sand?

You might consider installing alongside a suitable carbon dioxide detector/alarm. Unfortunately these generally cost 10 times as much as the more common carbon monoxide detectors.

You were bang on Darrel. Armed with the info from your post I did some googling and I'm now sure it is Haematococcus pluvialis as you suggested. Hadn't occurred to me until you mentioned it but my bird bath does this every year too. I have been told it does the birds no harm? Many thanks Ed

Although they appear to be popular I found mine hard to see so threw it out after a couple of days and just relied on my PH pen.

Having seen it done on youtube I tried to make green water by simply placing some banana skin in a vase of mature tank water. No fish involved I hasten to add. After a couple of weeks standing indoors on a south facing window sill the water turned wine red rather than green. Is this a red...

Sorry... CO2 test is missing from that list.

Just seen the Flora Aquaset 2 for sale @ £39.95 & free postage. caught my interest as I've never heard of them before. Just wondering if anyone here has any experience of this test kit?

As for FE refills, Search this thread for any mention of your town or region. https://www.ukaps.org/forum/threads/co2-refills.4258/

I can certainly recommend this one is has worked faultlessly for me https://www.co2art.eu/collections/co2-regulators/products/pro-se-series-aquarium-co2-dual-stage-regulator-with-integrated-solenoid

I know this is an old post but I thought it worth posting this updated link... http://taaquaculture.uk/

Just clicked..! My window cleaner knocked on the door a year or so back to explain he would be leaving the windows wet from now on as he was now using "special water" which dried by itself without leaving spots. Guess it's RO water but at 3p per litre is it competitive?

I too got one after recommendation on here. Works well for me so far. I got mine from China but you have to wait a bit longer. If you go for the China option then select the size via the color options. Two of the color options are for replacement ceramics.

It may be worth looking into more efficient diffusers. I found my inline diffuser a great improvement over the in tank ceramic.

So is there no one who agrees with me? I find it fascinating that this misconception regarding KH is so ingrained in the hobby..!

I don't disagree with any of that but what does it have to do with the definition of KH? I don't disagree with that either but I never suggested it matters where the carbonates came from. I would just like to say how much I appreciate your input even if we don't agree. :)

I think this might help also... https://www.emdmillipore.com/Web-US-Site/en_CA/-/USD/ShowDocument-File?ProductSKU=MDA_CHEM-111103&DocumentId=2043.ProNet&DocumentUID=11110&DocumentType=PI&Language=EN&Country=NF&Origin=PDP

No, it is that portion of GH balanced by carbonates. This is just plain wrong. It's much simpler than you make it out to be. But if you wont take my word for it maybe a couple of citations will help... From...WATER CHEMISTRY An Introduction to the Chemistry of Natural and Engineered Aquatic...

When I get a minute I'll go back to the original thread and try to point out the inaccuracies. My point exactly..! I think the main difference between us lies in how we define KH I think we both agree that GH is the sum of multivalent cations or total hardness These cations must be balanced...

Hi again Marcel. :) I have no argument with your figures which I'm sure are correct. I'm sure also that you are correct to say that KH (as measured by your test kit) is greater than GH in your area.:) addendum I just noticed your water company is reporting total carbonates not carbonate...

No. At least that goes for the NT Labs test kit I use.

Hi Marcel Sorry if my answer seemed a little kurt as it wasn't intended that way. The test kit manufacturers must share a lot of the blame for the confusion. It is relatively easy to measure Alkalinity (A) but not so easy to measure KH. Since A=KH so long as KH<=GH and since this is the case for...

I don't think that thread is a good example as it contains a number of inaccuracies.

Your test kit is measuring Alkalinity (A) not KH. A = KH so long as KH<GH. If A>GH then KH=GH.

You are right, sodium bicarbonate will raise the value of KH but not beyond GH. What your really doing is raising the alkalinity and the two values are the same so long as KH < GH. Alkalinity on the other hand can be greater than GH.

GH or total hardness is a measure of the multivalent cations present in the water. Principally Ca++ and Mg++ KH or carbonate hardness is that portion of GH cations associated with carbonate/bicarbonate anions. Despite the name it is the multivalent cations and not the carbonate anions that...

The "Temporary Hardness" you refer to in your first equation is another name for Carbonate Hardness or KH. So by your definition KH must be less than Total Hardness (GH). Strictly speaking Total Hardness is the sum of multivalent cations so for example monovalent ions such as Na+ (sodium) are...

Should more accurately be called “Total Hardness” as it was mistranslated from the German “Gesamthärte“. The term “Total” makes more sense as GH is the sum of carbonate and non carbonate hardness

GH is Total Hardness. Total hardness = Carbonate hardness (KH) + non Carbonate hardness.

Many people including the author of this article make no distinction between KH and Alkalinity..! They are not the same. Alkalinity can indeed be greater than GH but KH cannot since GH=KH+NKH.

Apologies, I should have been clearer... By another place I meant a different site altogether.

A short time ago A thread I started in another place was closed down by a moderator because I was arguing that KH can never be greater than GH. In fact the moderator went so far as to say this was nonsense. Now this really threw me because I'm sure I'm right.... Since I'm posting this in the...

I've only been using co2 for a few months now and like you was originally intended to go down the route of a ph controller. In the event I decided it was unnecessary. I would use the money saved to buy dual stage reg + cheap ph meter. The ph meter doesn't have to be spot on accurate as it's the...

Don't know he answer to your question as I'm still on my first 2kg bottle

I'm having good results with the "Qanvee Atomiser" which is a cheap Chinese import. =1']Other's here have posted good reports too...

Do they refill while you wait? Do you need an appointment?

Well you live and learn. :) Thanks Darrel.

Now I'm getting confused again. lol. I was working on the assumption that GH (Total Hardness) is the sum of temporary + permanent hardness? Thus after boiling off the temporary hardness I expected to see a reduction in GH?

Your right Darrel, about the terminology which is what threw me in the first place. I should have said that since my initial confusion I did delve into the chemistry somewhat but its not an easy subject I find. Some of what you said doesn't quite gel with what I thought I new, so it's back to...

I've had a CO2 Art Pro SE regulator for about 2 months now and am very happy with it.

Hi Darrel. Many thanks for your answer. Just one thing... I didn't as you say make the assumption that all the dGH/dKH is from CaCO3. I guess you got this idea from the part where I stated.. "So KH should equal GH - Permanent hardness." By which I meant KH should equal GH minus permanent...

Just wondering if anyone calculates KH by first boiling it off to get permanent hardness? So KH should equal GH - Permanent hardness. Would this method be viable/accurate? I'm assuming the water lost through the boiling would be made up using di water before testing.

Another member (willsy) just gave me the heads up but being new here I don't know how to link you to his post. Anyway... https://www.aliexpress.com/item/Qan...f508853&transAbTest=ae803_2&priceBeautifyAB=0 I noticed this before but didn't realise that choosing a color lets you just buy the...

Thanks a bunch

Hi willsy, Just wondering if you could help with finding a source for spare ceramics? I've come up blank!