how to increase hardness?

[fshygirl101]

hi all i want to increase hardness in my 55l i would like my ph just a little higher but mainly want to increase hardness ive heard that you should use crushed coral as a substrate but i already have silica sand. ive also heard you can use crushed oyster in filter but i have UG filter also ide like to do something wich dosent take months heard of using bicarbonate of soda but how much? my water is way to soft.

[Firefly]

How much is too soft? Using coral and oyster shells takes time. I think there is a sera or tetra product out there somewhere.

[Singularity]

do you have decent test kits to test with ?

[fshygirl101]

no our pet shop is tiny so we bring water to local swimming pool shop they test it for us
ill look for a product but i dought ill find one like i said tiny petshop

[Singularity]

Nowadays you can order almost anything online from the bigger shops and sponsors on this forum and if they are good you will have it within 3-4 days, you should look into this, will also be cheaper than your LFS.

[fshygirl101]

i live in secunda 1and a half hours from JNB theres a larger pet store in jnb petmasters. do you think they will have somthing?

[A Bauer]

Hi Fshygirl101

I have some PH - UP and PH - DOWN made by Daro have no idea how it works but you are welcome to have it. ( it got given to me with a bunch of other stuff and i will never use it.) PM me your details and we can make arrangements if you want it. By the way the owner of the LPS in Secunda is prepared to order stuff if she doesn't have what your looking for, you just have to ask.

[rixtrix]

There is a sera product thats available at most petshops its called mineral salt. i use it for my r/o water its easy and works wonders, just takes a while to mix in

[fshygirl101]

i know our LPS can order fish, but not products ive orderd fish before, but there mostly not in good health and tend to be far from the most colourful of beautiful. my ph kit includes ph plus and minus so thanks for the offer but i wont need it. thanks for the info guys ill look for mineral salt.

[Pistolshrimp]

Lol was i the only one that had a dirty thought when i saw the title of the thread? Ok serious note, bicarb works well, you must just test a bit and see what dosage you need to raise the kh to the level you require

[mydummyname]

pistol. there are kids on this forum.

and yes, bicarb seems to be the most common way that ive heard of to get your ph up and stable. something like a tiny pinch per liter, but i'm no expert on the subject.

[Pistolshrimp]

She wants to increases hardness, which is akalinity right? Which is kh? when u increase the ph u making something more basic, not harder, so she wants to increase the ph?

[TankMaster]

She wants to increases hardness

:p

Simple way is to buy a test kit with buffers or if you can get the buffers alone, then buy it.

TM

[fshygirl101]

our LFS has nothing and next time im in JNB is a bit too late. i particularaly want to get my water hard before then. i dont want to use my fish as test subjects to find out how much bicarb its kinda cruel. id use bicarb if i knew how much for 50 liters, anyone know?

[TankMaster]

Where is JNB?

[fshygirl101]

johannesburg

[TankMaster]

Oh :D My ignorance . . . it's usually JHB but hey, you're really creative. :)

[fshygirl101]

no sorry that was my mistake i ment JHB

[scotty]

Bicarb is your easiest way of increasing the hardness. Without increasing your hardness you will battle to keep your PH at around 8,2-8,4. You are correct in wanting to use sea shell and coral but the problem is it takes quite some time for them to start leaching out calcium which will be of help. The bicarb allows this to happen immediately. I would suggest you add a good heaped pudding spoon of bicarb to 50l. This would be your initial amount then a couple of monyhs later a heaped teaspoon. This should then allow enough time for the shell and coral to start leaching.

[Franssny]

Sodium Bicarb will only raise KH 1 teaspoon per 50 L will raise by 4 degrees. To raise GH you will need Calcium Carbonate (Limestone powder available from garden centres) 2 teaspoons will raise Kh & GH by 1 degree. BEST is to get a commercial buffer IMHO as pH , kH & GH (bermuda triangle of water chemistry is interlinked

[mydummyname]

ph actually doesnt really have anything to do with hardness of water... PH is how acidic your water is..

for that reason if a person for example has a bladder infection, your urine has high acidic levels, and it burns when you urinate because of the high acid levels.

adding bicarb does also keep your level of PH stable, so there would be less fluctuations in your PH.

HARDNESS is something different, hard water is water that has a high dissolved mineral content, ie, higher levels of calcium and magnesium while softer water contains less of these minerals. that is why thing like limestone, corals, sea shells in water make it harder, by actually leaching the calcium and magnesum into the water.

so, to STABILISE you PH, you add Bicarb.

to HARDEN water, you add, limestone, shells, corals.

[TankMaster]

Would adding Calcium tablets (From DisChem) increase the hardness?

[mydummyname]

Would adding Calcium tablets (From DisChem) increase the hardness?

hey TM..

i really dont know.. my logic says that if it did work, it would be dissolved almost immediately into the water and raise the hardness almost instantly, but the amount of calcium would decrease with every water change unless you add a tablet with avery water change.. so you would have hard water, soft water, hard water, soft water..

i would think that something like sea-shells or crushed coral would be a better option as the hardness would increase gradually over time as it slowly leeches out and be more stable..

[DanH]

Some useful things from the supermarkets

Carbonate Hardness (kH):
Bake 500g Bi Carbonate of Soda on a baking tray at 180C for 2hours. Put it in a container and add 35g borax. Mix together. (97% bicarb 7% borax)
1g/100L = +7.5ppm(+0.45dkH)

Magnesium (Mg)
Epson Salts
10g/100L = +9.8ppm

Calcium (Ca)
Calcium Chloride (not so easy to find)
10g/100L = +27ppm

Iodine (I)
Lugols solution (chemist)
1ml per 100L every second day roughly to maintain at 0.6ppm

Kalwasser
Slaked Lime (pickling lime)
Calcium hydroxide
Must be mixed and dripped in over a few hours, discard whats left in the dripping bottle

Food grade or lab grade chemicals are the ones you want.

When adding chemicals to your tank never add directly, always add chemicals to a container of water and mix first.

Never add water to chemicals, always add chemicals to water, heat is released by some reactions.

Change must occur gradually, not instantly so add a little at a time over a few days.

Don't try to get all your values 100%, rather pick a value within the range and stick with it. You want stability.

Finally, never add anything you can't test for.

[Zoom]

You would need to be careful playing around with Mg and Ca. Your tap water has a certain amount of these elements, and an incorrect imbalance of the 2 can cause algae problems.

[DanH]

True, that's why I said never add anything you can't test for.
What exactly is General Hardness a measure of? Isn't Mg and Ca include in General Hardness?

[DanH]

dGH
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Degrees of general hardness (dGH) is a unit of water hardness, specifically of general hardness.

General hardness is a measure of the concentration of calcium and magnesium cations (Ca2+, Mg2+) per volume of water. Specifically, 1 dGH is defined as 10 milligrams (mg) of calcium oxide (CaO) per litre of water, which is equivalent to 0.17832 mmol per litre of elemental calcium and/or magnesium ions.

Note that in water testing, paper strips often measure hardness in parts per million (ppm), where one part per million is defined as one milligram of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) per litre of water. Consequently, 1 dGH = 17.848 ppm