Robbert

Right so with baking soda you will miss all other minerals. thanks for the clarification.

Aren't coral and baking soda raising hardness and pH ? so if you are at 8 and trying to reach 7,2 by Adding more. wouldn't that be counter productive? In any case what im trying to ask is this: Would it be good to make the tapwater that I use for my initial build of the tank harder. (no fish in cycle) soo that I get a head start on the slower process of the coral getting my water up to Endler guppy specs. And is using baking soda safe when you mix it in a bucket then measure until its its where it needs to be. Then using that water start cycling and add fis way way later in " the cycle".

This is probably a dumb idea because I could not find anything on the subject. I know raising ph and gh with baking soda in a fish tank is risky. But would it be smart or helpful and safe to add some baking soda to a (few) buckets of tap water to reach the desired ph, hardness and buffering capacity. And then set up your new tank with that water. Then after the tank is cycled and stable, add some crushed coral to keep up or compensate for the water changes. I guess the safe bet is just use normal tap water be patient and add coral later. But i was trigged by an old video on the channel.