ScareCrow
Member
Hi all,
Sorry in advance for the essay.
I recently lost all of my neocaridina shrimp, which I'm putting down to the Kh dropping.
For context:
. I use rainwater in all of my tanks, which normally has a kh of 2-3 and Gh of 4-5.
. After noticing I'd not seen any shrimp for a while I pulled some of the plants but found no shrimp, not even bodies/exoskeletons.
. The snail shells in the tank, tend to be quite pale and are often pitted.
. The raccoon tiger shrimp I have, which are caridinia are fine.
. My tank kh is currently 0. This is the same across all of my tanks.
. All but one are pond soil capped with silica sand, no CO². The 'one' is just silica sand and no CO².
. Three days ago I tried doing a couple of small water changes on one tank using a mix of rain and tap water to gradually raise the kh. The mixed water had a kh of 3 and I also added a small handful of crushed coral gravel to gradually leach some additional kh.
. The kh is still reading 0 in the tank.
. The only other inhabitants of the tanks are corys and one female kribensis.
. All tanks have a manufacture stated 10x turn over so slightly less than 10x but not under filtered.
. I found this thread about plants using kh as a CO² source but my tanks are quite heavily stocked with fish and although dense with plants they're all low light slow growing plants, so not super CO² hungry and I'd thought the fish would respire enough CO² to at least partially satisfy demand.
. The other odd thing is the tub I use to culture black worms has a kh of 4 but has the same setup as my tanks with the only difference being that it has flint gravel rather than silica sand. I'm not suggesting the sand is absorbing kh, just find it odd that the tub differs so much.
Thanks for reading this far and if you have any suggestions about how I could stabilise kh (I've read the threads on dosing and also using chick grit, which I'm tempted to add to my water butt). I'd ideally like a fairly hands off approach that will result in a stable kh that's around 3-4. I'm sure that's like asking for peace on earth and an end to famine but if you don't ask right
thanks all.
Sorry in advance for the essay.
I recently lost all of my neocaridina shrimp, which I'm putting down to the Kh dropping.
For context:
. I use rainwater in all of my tanks, which normally has a kh of 2-3 and Gh of 4-5.
. After noticing I'd not seen any shrimp for a while I pulled some of the plants but found no shrimp, not even bodies/exoskeletons.
. The snail shells in the tank, tend to be quite pale and are often pitted.
. The raccoon tiger shrimp I have, which are caridinia are fine.
. My tank kh is currently 0. This is the same across all of my tanks.
. All but one are pond soil capped with silica sand, no CO². The 'one' is just silica sand and no CO².
. Three days ago I tried doing a couple of small water changes on one tank using a mix of rain and tap water to gradually raise the kh. The mixed water had a kh of 3 and I also added a small handful of crushed coral gravel to gradually leach some additional kh.
. The kh is still reading 0 in the tank.
. The only other inhabitants of the tanks are corys and one female kribensis.
. All tanks have a manufacture stated 10x turn over so slightly less than 10x but not under filtered.
. I found this thread about plants using kh as a CO² source but my tanks are quite heavily stocked with fish and although dense with plants they're all low light slow growing plants, so not super CO² hungry and I'd thought the fish would respire enough CO² to at least partially satisfy demand.
. The other odd thing is the tub I use to culture black worms has a kh of 4 but has the same setup as my tanks with the only difference being that it has flint gravel rather than silica sand. I'm not suggesting the sand is absorbing kh, just find it odd that the tub differs so much.
Thanks for reading this far and if you have any suggestions about how I could stabilise kh (I've read the threads on dosing and also using chick grit, which I'm tempted to add to my water butt). I'd ideally like a fairly hands off approach that will result in a stable kh that's around 3-4. I'm sure that's like asking for peace on earth and an end to famine but if you don't ask right
thanks all.
