Kh, Gh, And Dh Question

[MeisEpic]

I have kept betta fish for a while, and never payed attention to the KH, GH, or DH because they were doing awesome. I had one betta for over 5 years.

Now, however, I want to look at some different fish and I have decided that I should learn about KH, GH, DH, and water hardness.
From what I can tell from the internet KH affects your PH. The higher your KH the more stable your PH will be?
GH is total dissolved minerals in the water. The more minerals the harder the water is and the less minerals the softer the water is. Hard water fish must go in hard water, but soft water fish can go in hard water.
What is DH? How do I measure DH? How do I adjust DH? Is there is DH test kit because I can only find KH and GH test kits. How do I raise or lower DH? I am aiming for a DH of 10-15 but I don’t know how to find out what my DH is.
I just bought a GH and KH test kit and it is coming in the mail. Will raising or lowering my KH also raise or lower my PH?
Sorry for so many questions in one thread! I am trying to clear up all the confusion in my head.

 

[-Mak-]

You're completely correct about KH and pH! Not only will pH become more stable as KH increases, pH will also go up.

GH is mostly made up of calcium and magnesium, but yes mainly dissolved salts/minerals.

DH is actually the units for KH and GH, it's not a thing on its own. It stands for degrees hardness, and it's a German unit that takes the place of ppm. The conversion is 17.8 ppm per degree.

About the soft water fish/hard water fish - I believe it's actually KH that determines the hardness/softness in this particular respect. The GH also matters to some extent, but the KH more so. I can't pull up any particular resource that says this but it's kind of a vibe I've gotten after being online looking at aquarium stuff for so long. For example, with soft water shrimp like caridina and soft water plants like tonina, it's always the KH that hobbyists say should be close to 0, and GH is more lenient.

 

[MeisEpic]

Ok! So raising and lowering gh and kh raises and lowers dh?

So if I know my kh and gh how do I find out what my dh is?

If I have low kh, say 3, will the ph fluctuate a lot?

 

[-Mak-]

Ok! So raising and lowering gh and kh raises and lowers dh?

So if I know my kh and gh how do I find out what my dh is?

If I have low kh, say 3, will the ph fluctuate a lot?

Well again dh isn't a physical thing, it's just the units for KH and GH. The tests for KH and GH are titration reactions. The number of drops it takes to complete the test will indicate the degrees hardness

 

[MeisEpic]

Ok that makes sense! Thanks so much.
The kit wil arrive on Friday so I may have more questions then

 

[-Mak-]

Ok that makes sense! Thanks so much.
The kit wil arrive on Friday so I may have more questions then

No problem! And we'll be happy to help on Friday if needed

 

[MeisEpic]

I got the gh and kh test kit. I tried it out on my tap water (I just did a water change on my fish tank and hooked up a canister filter so I wanted to wait a few days) and I am confused. Either I am not doing this or I have awful tap water.

KH test: it took one drop for the water to turn yellow. I did another drop just to make sure and yep. The water was yellow. It never turned blue. Therefore I have really low KH. I have low ph also so I think I am going to buy a seachem product that will raise kh and ph.

GH test: once again, it took one drop for the water to turn green. It was never orange. Straight to green. I did another drop to check and yep, green. I also have really low GH I guess. I will use seachem equilibrium to raise it.

This is of course my tap water but my aquarium water is going to be nearly identical.

 

[david1978]

You have soft low ph water. If I'm not mistaken that's what betta prefer.

 

[MeisEpic]

That would explain why my betta were doing so well but I am trying some different fish that need harder water and a slightly higher ph.