FishMan wrote:
I started an aquarium on Dec 14th. The water in my home is not
suitable for an aquarium so I decided to use RO water. I knew I had to
add a conditioner to the water so I put Kent Marine RO Right in the
water. What I didn't know is that I had to adjust the KH of the water
to prevent ph crashes, and sure enough I had a low ph problem which
actually caused an ammonia problem. I have been adding ph Stable to
the water to increase the KH, but it seems to be stuck at 0. I have 10
neon tetras in a 20 gallon tank and can't just dump in alot of
chemicals or the fish will die. Now my ph is about 6.8 and
ammonia/nitrite zero, but I need to get the KH up.

Is there a way that I can increase the KH without driving up the ph
real fast ? I don't want the ph to increase more than about .2 per day,
and every time I add ph Stable the kh stays the same but the ph rises.
I have also tried about 2 tbsp of crushed coral, but that rose my ph
too fast so I took it out. The kh did get to about 1.0 after that, but
it has dropped again.

Increased KH = increased pH (to a point) unless you add CO2 or another
buffering system like phosphate. Lemme guess. The tank pH shoots up to
7.4. It's almost impossible to slow the rise, but fish don't mind as
long as there's no ammonia. The good news is once the water hits about
pH 7.4, the rise slows down.

--
Put the word aquaria in the subject to reply.
Did you read the FAQ? http://faq.thekrib.com