Hardness

[R3dm4n]

What is the ideal general hardness and the ideal carbonate hardness?
Does Peat lower general or carbonate hardness or both

[Ben]

I measure my GH as TDS (total disolved salts)
For the brooders i run at 28-30 PPM TDS.
At the moment i do not have a KH tester so i am not sure what the KH is. But i can take a punt and say it is very low as if the water is not changed or buffered i can and will get a PH crash.

Peat will reduce the GH, as for KH i am not sure....

Ben

[Benny]

Pardon my ignorance Ben, Is TDS total dissolved salts, or Total Dissolved Solids (in chem i thought it was the latter)

[Ben]

Hi Benny,
No ignorance mate, just a good question!
It can be expressed as either, total dissolved solids referring to the amount of solid minerals/calcium/salt.

The effect of carbonate hardness is a very interesting and scientific element in the aquaria.

After some research in the last hour i think peat would lower the KH of water as peat reacts with calcium to neutralize the calcium ions.
But to what extent i am still unsure...
I will look into it some further and trial some tests if I can get my hands on some good quality aquarium friendly peat.


Cheers
Ben

[Proteus]

TDS is either Salts or Solids (when using solids it is referring to the salt and magnesium content in the water).

For scientific purposes most use solids, however in the aquaculture industry, salts is used... go figure

KH is the buffering capacity of the water.