Soft water TDS

[dcmilly]

We are on city well water with a TDS of about 45.

Should I be adding a supplement to raise the TDS?

For planted with fish aquarium.

[Biotope Biologist]

TDS just refers to total dissolved solids. It is not exactly a helpful metric for measuring nutrients. I would suggest adding a plant fertilizer supplement to your water based on what plants you are trying to grow.

[dcmilly]

What metric do you use? KH or GH?

Having problems with light and nutrients balance.

Thanks,

[Biotope Biologist]

Unfortunately, metrics for measuring individual nutrient levels is expensive. You could use a conductivity meter which measures the electrical field in the water and allows you to know how many dissolved salts are in the water. This is how people in the hydroponics measure nutrient loads in the water, if im not mistaken.

 

Although unless you are trying to raise some extremely sensitive plant species I wouldn't bother trying to measure and just kind of increase or decrease fertilizers based on the instructions the specific fertilizer gives and how your plants take to growing. If you are struggling with algae commonly this means that you are using to much fertilizer.

Edited August 1, 2021 by Biotope Biologist

[Mmiller2001]

It's kinda low. I run 4dGH and 0dKH. My source water TDS is 85ish and tank is around 160TDS. I would test GH and KH before adding any booster.

[CT_]

If you really do have 45 tds that would limit your hardness to about 2-3dGH max since TDS<=gh.  Usually carbonate hardness comes from minerals as well so  that would put the same upper bound on your kh too.

[NanoNano]

On 7/31/2021 at 7:33 PM, Biotope Biologist said:

You could use a conductivity meter which measures the electrical field in the water and allows you to know how many dissolved salts are in the water. This is how people in the hydroponics measure nutrient loads in the water, if im not mistaken.

You may want to use incognito mode in your browser...My aquarium driven CO2 equipment and water test tool searching gave me the gift of serving a ton of CBD and Tommy Chong sponsored links for awhile there after 🙄.