My Aquarium Coop test strips Gh shows as a bright purple rather than a dark color, does anyone know why?

[Stroy15]

[RichNJ]

On 8/22/2022 at 10:36 AM, Stroy15 said:

I've seen that too on my non-water softener treated tap (22dh) and also my hardwater liver bearer tank with re-hardened post water softener  (12dh).  I suppose it means you are off the charts there.

My ph is 8-8.2 according to API drops, but shows pink on the Coop strips, so off the chart too I guess.

[face]

as said above you likely have more than 300 ppm gh if you want to know the real number you're going to have to use a liquid test or cut your water with distilled water then test that the other option is that something is interfering with the test.

[Scot]

On 8/22/2022 at 11:51 AM, face said:

as said above you likely have more than 300 ppm gh if you want to know the real number you're going to have to use a liquid test or cut your water with distilled water then test that the other option is that something is interfering with the test.

Cutting your water in half is probably the easiest cheapest way to see if the color will change back to the range colors. Hardness is additive or multiplicative NOT exponential. Therefore it's easy. If you double the water with distilled water, then you double the result. I.e. a result of 75 would mean your aquarium water is 150. Please note that the strips give you ranges of results. If you want to find out exactly what it is you need a TDS meter and a hardness test that can test the narrow range of hardness where your water is.

[nabokovfan87]

Something like a Zero Water 5G filter system (or under sink filter) would work well for the sake of a small tank.  Anything 20G+ I think you're just overthinking it and need to focus on fish that do well (and plants) that do well in hard water.  This is something a lot of us deal with and ultimately it means that you have well over 300+ ppm of GH in your water.  That the TDS in the water is very high.  Once you're into the purple range, it's high. Once you're into the feint/ light purple it's pretty high.

I have had water like this for many years without issues.

On 8/22/2022 at 7:36 AM, Stroy15 said:

Some contamination on the KH pad.  Just be careful with it.  Here's a great video to demo what I am talking about.
 

I'm guessing you live real close to me!  Water looks like low KH, Low PH, high GH.

[Stroy15]

Thank you all, I have rather large tanks, a 49-50 column tank and a 75 gal tank with gourami in them all fish I have I had more than a year at this point so thus they been fine.

I tested my tap its at 200 ppm gh and 100 ppm kh, which I think means I should preform more or larger water changes and find an easier way to do it.

The new test strip indicates no/or very little chlorine in my tap, so that's good.

do you all have any advice or tips to maintain kh in the tank?

I been using sachem neutral regulator although kh seems to go away rather quickly after a couple days.

Edited August 22, 2022 by Stroy15

[nabokovfan87]

On 8/22/2022 at 2:37 PM, Stroy15 said:

do you all have any advice or tips to maintain kh in the tank?

I been using sachem neutral regulator although kh seems to go away rather quickly after a couple days.

I am right on the border with mine.  I use Seachem Alkaline buffer in 1/8 tsp increments.  About 4-6 of them is good for "maintaining" things on a 20-30g ratio.  I would expect that to help, but it doesn't really solve the problem.  The best thing, if you have the tank for it is to add some crushed coral.  It's going to be a slow, long term release and it'll be a lot more stable than trying to dose the tank, letting the buffer do it's thing, and then testing to see if it's "ok".  It's a lot less stressful on the tank and the fish (and shrimp).

To give you an idea of what's going on, waste consumes the KH, that drops the PH, and it's just replenished most often during water changes.

https://www.aquariumcoop.com/blogs/aquarium/ph-gh-kh

[face]

seachem neutral regulator is a phosphate buffer it replaces bicarbonate (kh) with phosphate (phosphate will appear on a kh test) if you have plants or algae they could be eating the phosphate so your kh will drop.

side note you probubly dont want to use crushed coral and neutral regulator at the same  time i haven't tested it but thay should fight each other.

[rockfisher]

Mine is the same 300+ and I have tons of soft water fish although my ph is lower at 6 to 6.8.  If you are not trying to keep low ph soft water fish I think you are ok.

[Scot]

On 8/23/2022 at 12:33 AM, rockfisher said:

Mine is the same 300+ and I have tons of soft water fish although my ph is lower at 6 to 6.8.  If you are not trying to keep low ph soft water fish I think you are ok.

And as noted, if you breed through it the fish will be happier. You could even sell babies as "hardwater hardy".

[Stroy15]

My red eye tetras did breed with no help or intention until I saw this little guy one day, he's the only baby that seemed to survive long enough to reach too big to eat.

Also I did get some alkaline buffer and the ph this morning is around 7 which was where these fish were use too rather than being acidic side of the ph spectrum. 

[rockfisher]

On 8/23/2022 at 9:29 AM, Scot said:

And as noted, if you breed through it the fish will be happier. You could even sell babies as "hardwater hardy".

I do breed several Species  of Amazon fish and keep healthy happy discus.