dmurray407 Posted June 29, 2022 Share Posted June 29, 2022 I'm suspicious that I have chronically low potassium in my aquariums (from looking at my plant leaves) so I bought a K test kit. It arrived today right after I had dosed with Easy Green. Easy Green has a small amount of K (potash 9.21%) in it. Do you guys think I should wait a few days before testing my water? I'm anxious to see the results but I want them to be accurate. Thanks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mmiller2001 Posted June 29, 2022 Share Posted June 29, 2022 Test now after dosing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmurray407 Posted June 29, 2022 Author Share Posted June 29, 2022 Will do! Thank you! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmurray407 Posted June 29, 2022 Author Share Posted June 29, 2022 Well, my test result came back at 40, which is actually a little high. I'll try it again in a few days just to make sure. My other suspect is Phosphorus and I'm waiting for that test kit to arrive. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mmiller2001 Posted June 29, 2022 Share Posted June 29, 2022 I'd shoot for 15 to 35ppm. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted July 3, 2022 Share Posted July 3, 2022 How is the tank doing? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmurray407 Posted July 3, 2022 Author Share Posted July 3, 2022 On 7/3/2022 at 3:24 PM, nabokovfan87 said: How is the tank doing? The tank is doing OK, my plants just never seem to do well. I had some trouble with algae (green hair) but it's under control now. The fish look happy. My phosphorus test kit came and I'm a little high (the test, not me....) so it's water change day tomorrow. Eventually I'll get it right 🙂 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mmiller2001 Posted July 3, 2022 Share Posted July 3, 2022 What's your GH and KH? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted July 3, 2022 Share Posted July 3, 2022 On 7/3/2022 at 3:23 PM, dmurray407 said: Eventually I'll get it right 🙂 Exactly! Best of luck with it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmurray407 Posted July 3, 2022 Author Share Posted July 3, 2022 (edited) On 7/3/2022 at 5:36 PM, Mmiller2001 said: What's your GH and KH? My water is horrible. I live in Minnesota the land of granite and that's basically what my water is-liquid granite. My aquarium water is off the charts for the API KH/GH test kit-15gtts KH and 27gtts GH (tap water is approximately the same). Anyway, the API chart doesn't go up that high, but according to info I have found online I'm in the very to extremely hard range. Here's my Coop test strip-sorry about the fuzzy photo- Edited July 3, 2022 by dmurray407 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mmiller2001 Posted July 3, 2022 Share Posted July 3, 2022 Plants can struggle in such high parameters. They honestly want to be in soft water. Given enough time, they might adapt but those are some pretty high numbers and that can lock out some nutrients. I would look to drop GH and KH, but that depends on how far you want to take altering parameters. This might not be something you want to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dmurray407 Posted July 3, 2022 Author Share Posted July 3, 2022 On 7/3/2022 at 6:44 PM, Mmiller2001 said: would look to drop GH and KH, but that depends on how far you want to take altering parameters. Thank you! This explains a lot. Years ago I had a 20 gallon tank and bought purified water for water changes (more worried about the extremely high pH back then). Now I have a 60 gal tank and I don't want to haul that much water. Would RO water be less hard? Until a year ago I always had artificial plants, maybe I need to go back to them-hard to find really nice ones, though. Are any live plants more tolerant of hard water? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mmiller2001 Posted July 4, 2022 Share Posted July 4, 2022 There's a few. I'm not familiar with them but Google should know. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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