The Puffer Forum

Hi,

I tested my GH last night for the first time with my new master test kit. Following the instructions
the GH turned out to be about 700ppm? that sound high? the KH was at 65ppm ( or 3.63 if you use the other scale).

am I being a little paranoid? I'm relatively new to this side of fish keeping.

sg is 1.005

Our GH and KH are both at about 18 and it's fine even for the soft water fish. We have a friend who lives not far away and hers is about 25 for both

cool.. so do you keep a close eye on your GH KG Levels?

We did for a while on our display tank to determine accurate C02 concentrations and make sure things were stable. Since then we haven't looked at it as much as our tanks are understocked and we do large regular partials. We have to dose nitrates in most of our planted tanks because the plants eat it all up (even the low light ones).

It's the salt that makes your GH test high. I tried to test mine several times before and I couldn't add enough solution drops to get a change in color.

Your fish really don't care about those things. I only test for that in my reef tanks.

JRC3 wrote:It's the salt that makes your GH test high. I tried to test mine several times before and I couldn't add enough solution drops to get a change in color.

lol.. .it took me 20 drops to get the colour change! I thought I was losing my mind..

well, thanks for your responses guys. So I guess it's not worth monitoring so closely then...

I've started up a database with line graphs so I can trend certain aspects of the water quality just in
case I need to check up on what went wrong if my tank crashes

If you are running macroalge refugia, you should be checking both GH and KH. Both are going to be well higher than most FW levels other than in the arid areas of the country.