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A few months back my tap water changed and I noticed the pH in a couple of my smaller tanks (2.5 and 10 gallons) kept crashing seemingly randomly. After doing some testing I discovered that my KH was extremely low, causing the pH to drop from 7.2 to almost 6 in less than a day. I have since resolved this issue with crushed coral in those tanks, however my two larger tanks (29&60 gallons) haven’t experienced this problem, which I believe to be a result of the seiryu stone I have in these tanks. My tap water comes out at 7.2 pH, 2 KH, and 2 GH. I have not tested aged tap water, but I am going to set out some to age today and will update on that. After testing the largest tank today, the parameters within it are 7.2 pH, 3 KH, and 6 GH. The substrate is a layer of gravel capped in pool filter sand and the only other hardscape is Malaysian drift wood. Filtered by 2 larger co-op sponge filters. Is it true that the seiryu stone is causing the increase, and should I do something else to buffer the KH and GH to prevent a pH crash? I’m wary to add aragonite sand or crushed coral to this tank because it houses my 3 African butterfly fish, which I know prefer more acidic and soft water. Thanks for the advice!

This is my 125 community tank. It consists of: 10 bleeding heart tetra 8 Columbian tetra 8 skirt tetra 8 king blue tetra 4 sword tails 3 male bristlenose plecos 2 pearl gourami 1 male apistograma hongsloi 1 male black marble anglefish. Going to add to those numbers on a few things. Also looking too add something else that's not in the tank to it. Any suggestions? My intention right now is too add 3 more Columbian tetra 3 more king blue tetra 4 female sword tails and 3 platy Maybe some hatchet fish? Maybe some keyhole cichlids? Let me know what you guys think!

My 2 questions are: 1) If the PH is raised by Seiryu Stone, will aqua soil and plants be enough to lower the PH without dosing? 2) What is the difference between the Blue seiryu stone and black mountain seiryu stone? You would think it would be the color but all pictures that I have seen of the two look identical (could just be cameras, lighting, etc.). If anyone has either of these and could share what they look like in the water, I would be grateful. 🙂

So I was recently going through the Home Depot website and decided to try searching "seiryu stone", I came up with these results: Home Depot seems to be selling the bulk amounts of stones that Lowes was, although from what I can tell some of them are a bit more expensive. I've also noticed them selling other hardscape such as ohko/dragon stone as well as others. If you search "lifegard" on the Home Depot website you get a bunch of options in terms of hardscape for pretty good prices. Hope this helps!

Hi all, So I'd had a tank on my desk for roughly 21 months, and it contained Seiryu Stones as part of the hardscape. Now some may already know that Seiryu is known for its water altering property, and I figured to share a little bit of my experience so far. Moreover, I'm also interested in hearing everyone else's experience of playing with Seiryu! Thanks in advance for anyone willing to read through all this. Here is my tank specs along with water parameter RIGHT OUT OF tap. Tested with API Master Kit + Tetra Strips Standard US 5 gallon 7.4 pH Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate: all 0 ~300 ppm GH 100-150 ppm KH Inert gravel substrate with Lava Rock main hardscape, with a small handful of nano Seiryu Stone for accent. Planted with Myrio Green, Water Sprite, and Japan Clover So yeah, my water is literally liquid rock, but pH is not bad at all I think. This tank had been a solo betta tank. I did quite minimal water changes; if water test showed 0 for ammonia and nitrite, I just top it off unless nitrate went crazy. When my betta hit 2-year, it suddenly passed over weekend with no signs of sickness, so I did a water test to try find a root cause. A little confession, I had been neglecting pH test for a long time (shame on me). When I did test, I only used regular pH bottle (APT Master Kit), not the High pH one, this will be important. All parameters were normal, except for pH, which I read as 7.8 (deep blue per regular pH test). 7.8 wasn't too bad I thought, and boy was I wrong. Pull out the High pH bottle and the pH was a whooping 8.6! While I do believe in stable > perfect parameters, I'm pretty sure my betta did not come from Lake Tanganyika. Full test results from tank: 8.6 pH Ammonia, Nitrite, Nitrate: 0, 0, 20 ~300 ppm GH (could be more, strip can't test any higher) 100-150 ppm KH Since I have inert substrate, have pH 7.4 tap, and don't add anything in my water besides Easy Green, I narrowed my suspicion to my hardscape rocks leaching. Since Lava Rock is inert, it had to be the Seiryu Stones. Soaked one stone in distilled vinegar, yup it fizzed right away alright. Since Seiryu is a type of limestone, which is composed of mostly calcium carbonate, quick Google search revealed that calcium carbonate dissolving in water can reach pH equilibrium about mid-8, sometimes even around 9 or more. So that's my experience working with Seiryu Stone. Not saying it's "bad," just that I don't believe it was serving well for my case. I plan on getting some Ohko Stones instead (nice looking and also inert) and completely redo the tank. Maybe can trade-in the Seiryu in my LFS, who knows. How is everyone else's experience with Seiryu Stone?