Sitemaps

Water quality2007-11-24 23:09:52

Is PH the softness and hardness of the water?

Also what is ment by general hardness and does it really matter if gh and ph not at correct levels, as for kh i dont think it will apply to me as i have a fresh water aquarium.

I have kept lots of different species of fish and some have had fry but i have never done anything about the PH GH and KH and all my fish have always been fine. I let my new tanks cycle and use filter media from cycled tanks. I do my weekly water changes, vac gravel and only ever test for nitrate and nitrite.

I must be doing something right not to have fish dying on me all the time.

Answers:

No not really does it matter, but you just have to apply some logic and common sense to it. I'm clearly not saying that you should put fish that generally thrive in ph ranges of like 7-7.8 into water that has a PH of like 5.8 either. Generally speaking, fish can be outside of their PH range outside of reccomended parameters provided it is not massively out of range.

Your GH and KH are the factors which help your tank resist ph changes so to say. It's a buffer level that helps to absorb the influx of free hydrogen ions that generally lower your overall ph. Over the course of time in mature tanks, if you lessen your weekly changes, the amount of free hydrogen ions become higher from the ammonia and nitrite conversions as well as the inital breakdowns in waste and food. It's not always necessary to raise up your GH and KH if you are staying on top of your mainenence, but having that buffer is also a good thing just in case.