Stephan1973 Posted January 13, 2023 Share Posted January 13, 2023 Hi all. I have currently 4 planted tanks and a artificial tank. All tanks have great readings with the API test kit. Except for one of my planted tanks. It’s KH and GH are both higher than the rest and seem to high for me. The GH is 7 doh and the KH is 9 doh. It is stocked with 8 phantom tetras, 2 albino bristlenoses and some shrimp and rams horn snails. Are these numbers something I should worry about? This tank is 10 gallon and is the only one with Fluval stratum base and sand coving it. The other tanks are all just Fluval stratum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jwcarlson Posted January 13, 2023 Share Posted January 13, 2023 Any other stone in this one? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 13, 2023 Share Posted January 13, 2023 It's very likely the sand. What kind of sand? Aragonite? As mentioned above, something is leeching be it hardscape or sand. On 1/12/2023 at 6:08 PM, Stephan1973 said: The GH is 7 doh and the KH is 9 doh. It is stocked with 8 phantom tetras, 2 albino bristlenoses and some shrimp and rams horn snails. Are these numbers something I should worry about? What is your PH? GH I seriously ignore. KH I try to keep around 80 ppm (I believe that's around 6 degrees). Your main issue is going to be shrimp. Whatever they demand in terms of GH and PH/KH. You basically want to use a to like aqadvisor or others and compile a list of parameters that make sense for each species and then decide how the tank compares to those needs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lennie Posted January 13, 2023 Share Posted January 13, 2023 Hey there! I would like to share some experiences of mine. I keep my orange sakura shrimps in my tanks with a 8.0-8.2 ph and around 7-8 gh and 20 kh without any problems. Yes, 20 kh, thats my tap water. I also keep species like pygmy corys, l199, sterbai corys, horned and zebra nerites, rummy nose tetras, honey gourami, rabbit snails… which you can easy tell some of them are expected to have acidic water. I know them doing well, I have not faced any single disease symptoms, their growth and activity is amazing, they eat well and their change is easy to see after I got them from my lfs. Haven’t lost a single fish from that tank and it has been set for almost a year by now. As long as you don’t keep wild caught fish and got them tankbred in your local area, they do much better in your tap water parameters I think. Also keeping stable parameters seems to be the key. If you keep more sensitive shrimps than neocaridinas, then that might be a lil problematic. I have never thought of keeping them considering my parameters. Hope it helps 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Remi de Groot Posted January 13, 2023 Share Posted January 13, 2023 On 1/13/2023 at 7:06 AM, nabokovfan87 said: Your main issue is going to be shrimp. Whatever they demand in terms of GH and PH/KH. I have to agree on @Lennieon this one. My tap water is almost the same as the water in your tank with higher KH/GH. Never had any problems with neocaridina shrimps. Just make sure you acclimite them in the correct way. If it's not the substrate or a stone like @nabokovfan87 said it might be that this tank has more evaporation? When you top it off but don't change the water enough the KH/GH will be building up over time. I got this problem with 1 tank because it's the only tank without a lid. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephan1973 Posted January 13, 2023 Author Share Posted January 13, 2023 Going to try and answer everything that was asked the rocks are slate but tested with hydrogen peroxide and didn’t fizz the sand is normal play sand my ph is 7.7-7.8 (digital meter) the tank has a lid and evap is minimal The shrimp are neocaridinas Based on the last message I have not had to do much water changes since the values tend to be very stable being a well planted tank. Which makes me think that is the issue due to minimal water changes. Since though the shrimp prefer a bit high KH and GH and the fish are all doing fine I would assume that what I have is okay Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nabokovfan87 Posted January 13, 2023 Share Posted January 13, 2023 On 1/13/2023 at 2:07 PM, Stephan1973 said: Based on the last message I have not had to do much water changes since the values tend to be very stable being a well planted tank. Which makes me think that is the issue due to minimal water changes. Since though the shrimp prefer a bit high KH and GH and the fish are all doing fine I would assume that what I have is okay Yeah, makes sense given all the circumstances. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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