Dooper

Has anyone used the Seachem Neutral Regulator tohelp buffer their pH. Id rather not mess too much with my GH and kH as I will have to everytime i do a water change. Any thoughts?

pepetj

This is my rule of thumb: it's safe to add whatever as long as I can measure it. Of course this rule of thumb comes second to: stability is way more important than the actual measures if the parameters are reasonably within expected range for home aquariums.

Before adding anything, make sure it won't upset other variables. Ask yourself why do you want to use the product. Search around for reviews by users but use your own judgement to make decisions. It's your fish's tanks that are involved.

I am waiting for Seachem's Equilibrium (after reading around as much product info I could on trace minerals, this is the one I choose to get). Problem is it's coming by ship. I intend to use this product in heavily planted tanks with CO2 injection so I can space out water changes a bit more (I do weekly water changes because both my GH and KH tend to get real close or even reach the lower safe end within 2 weeks).

Pepetj
Santo Domingo

Dooper

well the issue is I have soft water that has little buffering capacity. Though my pH out of the tap is 7,2-7.5. On one hand I want to increase my GH and KH but I know this will raise my pH which I'd rather not....quite the dillema.

aquarist48

Dooper I recommend not using anything chemically to adjust your pH levels. They are too unreliable and can even cause your pH levels to crash. There are natural ways to buffer and or adjust your pH levels if you'll check out the link below.
Ken
Properly Maintaining the pH in a Freshwater Aquarium - Rate My Fish Tank

Dooper

So would you suggest I use some type of rock (petrified coral) to help increase my ph and kh (which is like 20ppm). The issue is in my other tank I have had the ph fluctuate between 5.5-7 and I dont want to do this to the fish im adding to the 36 gal. I would much rather have a ph of say 7.6 with rock in the tank, then have a ph of 5.5 one week and 6 the next and 6.5 the following week, what do you think?

Red1313

KH is fairly easy to toy with, PH is far trickier. Since you have such a unstable PH which is due to a low KH then I'd recomend something to raise it. You can use rock (the stuff that they use as sand in african cichlid tanks would work fine.) ideally.

I've got the opposite problem from you, out of the tap my water is incrediably hard (in the extremely good buffer range) a pain since I'm now looking at fish that like low KH's and even need them a bit for spawning.

Good Luck.

Dooper

I see, wanna swap water? haha so when i do water changes with my tap water, will that screw up the kH in my tank....like how would I go about doing water changes with water that has like no KH and adding it to my tank that has a high KH

Red1313

hmm... over time perhaps but I think that the stuff will disolve out of the sand over time. So while the water won't have the same KH it would eventually disolve new stuff. However I haven't used it before so maybe one someone who has cichlids could help.

Here are a couple links of google: They may be of some assistance
http://www.cichlid-forum.com/article..._chemistry.php
http://aquaticconcepts.thekrib.com/A..._Chemistry.htm
http://kh-aquarium.blogspot.com/ <--- Not so sure about this one but good info.

Dooper

Right....so when doing a partial water change...should I be treating the water being added....or would that water, not make much of a difference?