KH Going rapidly to 0 in 20 Gallon with baby endlers, baby mystery snails, and rams horn and bladder snails

[finbean3]

Here are the latest water measurements for my 20 Gallon in question:

PH Level	Ammonia Level (ppm)	Nitrite Level (ppm)	Nitrate Level (ppm)	temp (ºF)	GH (ppm)	KH (ppm)	Chlorine (ppm)
6.4	<0.02	1	5	74	>301	0	0

As mentioned in the title, I'm working out a KH problem. And the water ph is starting to go more acidic. Of all my aquariums, this is the one I change the water the most frequently for. (Changed it twice this past weekend. Each was 10 gallons changed.) I had not been cleaning the substrate as well as I used to, and my last change I did some siphoning of the substrate around the edges. The previous water change I cleaned the sponge filter.

The previous water change, I added a wonder shell, and this most recent water change I added 2 TBLS of Seachem Equilibrium. The only noticeable difference has been the GH more than doubled.

My latest theory is that my bio load for the aquarium has significantly increased and that is what is throwing off the balance. I do have a few plants as you will see in the picture, but I don't think they are enough to counterbalance. The substrate is the active kind, which supposedly is good for cycling a tank, but perhaps not so good for KH? (Activ-flora) And I did add a few pounds of crushed coral which is in a filter media bag.

As you will notice, the nitrite has been a bit of a problem also. My latest measurements were with a test strip and I suspect it is actually less than 1ppm, but the color was the same as what was on the label for 1. When I do water changes, in addition to decholrinator, I will usually also add some aquarium salt for general conditioning (and to combat the nitrite) as well as add maintenance dosages of active bacteria and bio-augmentation.

Here is my latest thoughts/plans to address this: I'm thinking there is just too many fish and snails in the aquarium and I need to move some out. Fortunately I have some options to work with. (I have a 55 gallon community tank that has a glofish shark and glofish blackskirt tetras and some danios, a 40 gallon snail tank, and a 20 Gallon long quarantine/snail tank) I'm researching compatibility and debating whom I should move to where. I'm also looking into ways to outsource/give away babies when ready. I'm also planning to cut back on the feeding for the adults and just stick to food for the fry. (Fed twice a day)

One wrinkle with the 40 gallon that needs some explanation: I'm contemplating adding a community of yo yo loaches to this aquarium. Why would I do that? For one, I have been wanting to adopt/buy a community of loaches for some months now. Second, I have a bit of an snail overgrowth population going on. In addition to the mystery snails which I intentionally bred, I also acquired some rams horn and bladder snails that I have unintentionally bred and they are currently dominating all of the aquariums minus the 20 Gallon Long. So I've been slowly migrating my mystery snails to the 20 Gallon Long and preparing the aquarium for the loaches with added cleanings and aqua hard scapes. 

If you are reading this and have some insight, I would love to hear it. If you have more questions, I will answer them in the hope for better insight.

Cheers!

[Tony s]

On 8/11/2024 at 11:18 PM, finbean3 said:

The previous water change, I added a wonder shell, and this most recent water change I added 2 TBLS of Seachem Equilibrium. The only noticeable difference has been the GH more than doubled.

Yes, that’s what they do. They Don’t usually change ph or kh. To change those you need either baking soda (carefully cause it can change it rapidly) or seachem alkaline booster. 
 

you could have 2 issues going on simultaneously. You may not be fully cycled. Which would result in nitrates being lower than nitrite. Or you may have enough bioload that the organic acids being produced are overwhelming your cycle as well as depleting your kh numbers. If you can run a parameter check on your tap, we can see what you’re working with. If the tap has low kh, you may need to supplement it with something like you’re doing with your gh. 

[finbean3]

Thanks for the insight, Tony S.

That makes sense about the Equilibrium and wonder shell, though I thought I had read somewhere else that they also raised the KH also. I should have pursued the alkaline booster, but I suppose I didn't since I am less familiar with the product. Also, KH is still kind of a mystery to me. I'm learning more about it with this aquarium.

I hold out the possibility that my 20 gallon is not fully cycled, even though it appeared to be so before all the babies. However, I'm leaning toward the later scenario in that the bio load is simply overwhelming the cycle. Here is the parameter check on my tap water currently:

PH Level	Nitrite Level (ppm)	Nitrate Level (ppm)	GH (ppm)	KH (ppm)	Chlorine (ppm)
6.8	0	10	300	80	0

 

I was kind of surprised by the lack of Chlorine detected, but not a bad thing I suppose. 

[Tony s]

Ok, you do have some nitrates. And no nitrites. You may be good. Kh measures the carbonates on the water. Most hardnes comes from either calcium carbonate (CaCO3, limestone) or magnesium carbonate you can use sodium carbonate (NaCO3, baking soda) to increase your kh as well as the alkaline booster. This works fine as well, but can do it rapidly. So try it in small amounts until you get a feel for it. The gh measures the calcium and magnesium part of the equation (CaCO3). not exactly sure what forms the equilibrium uses but the breakdown is this 

Soluble Potash (K2O)	23.0%
Calcium (Ca)	8.06%
Magnesium (Mg)	2.41%
Iron (Fe)	0.11%
Manganese (Mn)	0.06%

So it’s got a couple of different things that are also useful.

[r_e_g]

The active substrate is absolutely sucking up all the kH out of your water. It's what they do. I tested the water in all of my tanks the other day. They all had high GH & kH except for the one that uses Fluval Stratum. Zero kH!! It was alarming how different the test strip looked compared to the others.

[Littlefish]

On 9/15/2024 at 1:55 AM, r_e_g said:

The active substrate is absolutely sucking up all the kH out of your water. It's what they do. I tested the water in all of my tanks the other day. They all had high GH & kH except for the one that uses Fluval Stratum. Zero kH!! It was alarming how different the test strip looked compared to the others.

Good info rigjt here, thanks.

[tolstoy21]

Equilibrium is a Gh booster only. I have used it for many years and it does not add Kh at all.

Seems that your starting (out of the tap) Kh is about 4dKh (degrees carbonate hardness -- aka 80ppm).

As other have mentioned, an active substrate will strip Kh out of the water, so it makes sense that it keeps going to 0.

Kh is what buffers the water to keep it from getting too acidic, so if you have no Kh, you have no buffering capacity, and the Ph is free to swing downward. But the Ph wont drop forever. It should stay at 6.4-ish if you keep the tank clean.  But in the presence of a LOT of decomposing organics, it could go down into the upper-mid 5s.

Sooner or later, your active substrate will exhaust its ability to eat up Kh and you should no longer have a issue with disappearing Kh.

A lot of fish that do well in a Ph of 6.8 will also do fine in a Ph of 6.4. I would not overly worry about the issue unless you are keeping fish that require a basic Ph, like African cichlids.

Your endlers should be fine. I've kept and bred those in a Ph of 6.4 - 6.8. Ramshorn and bladder snails do fine in a Ph of 6.4 (as well as Malaysian Trumpet snails). 

The only inhabitant that will have an issue is Mystery Snails. I can never ever keep them alive in an acidic environment. 

I run about 20-30 aquariums, all without any Kh. They all hang around 6.4 - 6.6 Kh.  But I also make sure the tanks/water are very clean. 

Edited Monday at 09:46 PM by tolstoy21