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How quickly does kh drop in a fish tank and what causes it to drop? 
I’ve been doing weekly 30-50% water changes as I’ve been cycling and want to remove the excess nitrates from the tank but before I water change I test the tank water. Usually before a water change the ph is low (6.4 - 6.6) the gh is high (12-13 dgh) and the kh is low (0-1 dkh). I’ve yet to test the water parameters after a water change, but I just tested the sink water last week. The ph was 8, the dkh was 8, and the dgh was 18 (ammonia was also .5 but that’s not relevant). I was considering adding some crushed coral to raise my kh but I was curious as to why my sink water dkh is so high yet my tank dkh is so low? I have fluval stratum in my tank and I know that lowers ph but I hadn’t heard of it affecting anything else. This also had me thinking since the sink water parameters are fairly different from my tank water parameters, would water changes stress out the fish? 

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On 10/26/2021 at 4:13 PM, Mmiller2001 said:

The Stratum probably has a high CEC value and it's pulling the carbonates out of the water.

This.  It's probably going to absorb ions for a while but it should saturate at some point. 

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On 10/27/2021 at 3:43 AM, BeginnerFishKeeper said:

Won’t crushed coral raise my ph too? If so by how much? I’m just worried it will raise the ph a lot

My water has a KH of 1 and GH of 3 I put a 100 grams in my 50 gallon tank and it raises my pH from 6.8-7.2 you could try adding a small amount at a time  and monitor your pH 

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When I first set up my tank my substrate also lowered pH considerably for the first 4-6 weeks, had to keep doing water changes like twice a week until it stopped doing it. Lowering pH will in turn lower KH. You might find after enough time you don't need to worry about adding KH or doing so many water changes as the substrate will stop lowering them so much. 

 

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