Newbie GH question…

[Thornapple61]

Hello!

New to the hobby. Recently purchased a 65 gal. Tank kit. That I just re-setup this past weekend (first try looked pretty rough). It’s fairly heavily planted and I currently have 15 neons in it.

I have very soft water. I recently purchased some Seachem Equilibrium to bring the GH up. My questions are?

- I’ve read that 3-6 GH is ideal, or at least a good starting point?

-do I dose this gradually? Or add the whole 65 gal dose at once? (Comcernef about shocking the tank)

current water parameters per the test strips are (I struggle differentiating the colors on the test strips):

-GH: 0-25 PPM 

-KH: 80-120

-PH: 6.4-6.8

 

Thanks in advance

Edited January 25, 2023 by Thornapple61

[Rube_Goldfish]

On 1/25/2023 at 6:14 PM, Thornapple61 said:

Hello!

New to the hobby. Recently purchased a 65 gal. Tank kit. That I just re-setup this past weekend (first try looked pretty rough). It’s fairly heavily planted and I currently have 15 neons in it.

I have very soft water. I recently purchased some Seachem Equilibrium to bring the GH up. My questions are?

- I’ve read that 3-6 GH is ideal, or at least a good starting point?

-do I dose this gradually? Or add the whole 65 gal dose at once? (Comcernef about shocking the tank)

current water parameters per the test strips are (I struggle differentiating the colors on the test strips):

-GH: 0-25 PPM 

-KH: 80-120

-PH: 6.4-6.8

 

Thanks in advance

I dose Equilibrium to about 6 degrees of general hardness from a starting point just above zero, so we're in the same boat there. Each degree is about 17.9 ppm, so you're starting from 0 to about 1 and a quarter degrees, give or take. Neon tetras like it soft, and (most) plants like their water on the softer side, though usually not as soft as neons, but 3-6 dGH sounds like a pretty good target to me.

The safest way to make this adjustment would be to dose the incoming water during water changes to whatever your target is (let's say 6 dGH). Over a couple of water changes, you'll gradually get the tank to where your want it to be. If you use this method, base all your calculations on the new water volume only (that is, scale down the dosage from X teaspoons per 20 gallons to 1/X for a 5 gallon bucket, say).

Could you dose the whole tank? Probably, but I don't know. I guess you could also do smaller doses over the course of a couple days or weeks straight into the tank (that is, dose 5 gallons' worth every third day until you've done 65 gallons' worth). But I just got into the "dose the new water" habit and it's worked out for me.

By the way, don't be alarmed if the water looks really cloudy for about an hour or so; it'll clear up as it dissolves.

Edit: I found Seachem's calculators here: https://www.seachem.com/calculators.php

If you want to dose 5 US gallons from 0 to 6 dGH you'll use 1.5 tablespoons (or 24 grams).

Edited January 25, 2023 by Rube_Goldfish

[Thornapple61]

Thanks guys I appreciate the help!