rwel4809
Sun Mar 09, 2008, 07:12 AM
Hi all,
Tank stats: 300 litre heavily planted, 4 x 4-5" discus, 35 tetras, whiptail, 3 SAEs 1 BN 4 Chain Loaches - 8 x 39watt t5s, Eheim 2217 with 36watt UV steriliser, CO2 bottle (set to roughly 1bps) on Solenoid with lights.
I have been having trouble with my permanent CO2 tester - it was staying yellow even after I turned off my co2 2 days ago and added an air wall thingy today.. I checked the instructions and it says that the permanent Co2 test gives false readings if the KH is <5, so I checked and my KH has dropped to 0.5 - GH of 2.2.
the PH is normally stable at 6.4 but raised to 6.6 when I added the air wall.
By my calculations the CO2 is at an optimal level though none has been added for 2 days
Sorry for the big lead up..
The question is - should I try to increase the water hardness?
My RO unit (with built in chloramine filter) has a bypass mixer with tds monitor, so I can just bypass the RO bit for water changes until the hardness increases..
I am currently doing 2 x 10% water changes daily setting the TDS to around 50 pm as I'm feeding my discus 4 x a day to grow them into big beasties..
should I add shell grit to the filter?? any ideas anyone..
Tank stats: 300 litre heavily planted, 4 x 4-5" discus, 35 tetras, whiptail, 3 SAEs 1 BN 4 Chain Loaches - 8 x 39watt t5s, Eheim 2217 with 36watt UV steriliser, CO2 bottle (set to roughly 1bps) on Solenoid with lights.
I have been having trouble with my permanent CO2 tester - it was staying yellow even after I turned off my co2 2 days ago and added an air wall thingy today.. I checked the instructions and it says that the permanent Co2 test gives false readings if the KH is <5, so I checked and my KH has dropped to 0.5 - GH of 2.2.
the PH is normally stable at 6.4 but raised to 6.6 when I added the air wall.
By my calculations the CO2 is at an optimal level though none has been added for 2 days
Sorry for the big lead up..
The question is - should I try to increase the water hardness?
My RO unit (with built in chloramine filter) has a bypass mixer with tds monitor, so I can just bypass the RO bit for water changes until the hardness increases..
I am currently doing 2 x 10% water changes daily setting the TDS to around 50 pm as I'm feeding my discus 4 x a day to grow them into big beasties..
should I add shell grit to the filter?? any ideas anyone..