Reddit reviews API GH & KH TEST KIT Freshwater Aquarium Water Test Kit

To be honest I am not entirely sure what effects water hardness would have on skin or hair but apparently yes, Japan's water is really soft. So soft in fact that there are articles about how soft it is lol. NYC doesn't disclose the hardness of their water but some users say it's soft. But yeah, Japanese water seems superior!!

Also if you want you can test your tap water's hardness with this kit. It's meant for aquariums but I would test tap water for customers a lot. The general hardness test is the one that matters the most. Carbonate hardness is only an issue if you're a fish.

I mean, this is a pretty good deal imo. I don't think you should be dismissing and downvoting this post without doing the proper research. FYI did the math:

17lbs Seiryu rock - $32

Nano 511 Externa Canister Filter - $69

Jardli Glass Lily Pipe inflow and outflow - $49.90

JBJ Rimless 10 gallon - $159.99 cheapest I could find, it's 189.99 at petco

Glass lid - can't find one for 10g so I'd assume custom made $5+

GH & KH Test Kit & API Master Kit-$8.59 + $22.54 = $31.03

Tropica Aquarium Soil 3L - $49.60

5 Gallon Bucket w/ lid - probably like $3-5

Seachem Purigen - 2 packet is $19.49

Cleaning magnet - $5-20

Spider Wood - Depends like $10-25+

Siphon - depends probably $5-10

Test Strips - $5.22

• The bonuses he's providing like the aquascaping tools - probably $10+?
  
  By the way, these are all conservative numbers. The total comes to around $484.31, which is if everything is brand new. Even if some of the products are used, the cost is 52% off the conservative value of all the items in this package. So for the quality of the items here, I don't think it's a bad price at all. Now the question is, which items are new and which items are used?

This is a great tank! From what I can see he has vibrant colors and healthy fins. If Caboose is 10 months old; his current living conditions are maintained, he will live to the full potential of his life span which is 4 to 5 years. Make sure he has enough space at the top of the tank to surface and "breathe", which is important to prevent infections in his labyrinth organ (an organ evolved for absorbing CO2 and oxygen from the air.)

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I like the idea of more plants, if I may give some suggestions? Floating plants in my experience are very good for Betta fish and really most fish in general! It allows me to 'filter' out the light so it isn't shining directly into the tank which may become too intense and stress fish out. Salvinia or 'water moss' is a personal favorite, I also like duckweed, and water lettuce. However you have to be careful because plants like these, especially duckweed, will grow really fast and has to be trimmed a lot.

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Useful links to you I have on hand;

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Cheap API testing kits

Expensive API testing kit (I highly recommend this one)

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https://www.aquariumcoop.com/

https://www.thegreenmachineonline.com/

https://www.fishkeepingworld.com/

https://www.liveaquaria.com/

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You need to test it

kh gh

ph

Put tap water in the test tubes read the directions to see how many drops to add, add and shake and wait a few minutes and read.

Ahh, unfortunately, those test strips are not very reliable, so I can't trust them at all. But you can try comparing that to whatever the test results were when they were doing fine.

I use these GH & KH test kits for mine:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003SNCHMA

And this TDS meter:

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0002T6L5M/

The behavior you described seems to match some sort of poisoning from toxins or just slightly off water conditions. It could be ammonia since your test kit doesn't test for that, but I would lean more towards something like pH, GH, KH, and/or TDS changing too much from the conditions that CRS need. Neos are more tolerant of those, but would also be affected by something like ammonia poisoning.

A good way to test the water is the API GH and KH Test Kit. Scaling is a combination of GH and KH. You need general hardness and carbonate hardness to be present to create scale. The softener will eliminate one of those, if it is working.

Testing the grinder is tougher. Best way is to find a local home barista and have them bring their grinder over (beer, scotch, BBQ or a combination is normally a sufficient lure). Sometimes just one little tweak can make a difference.

And if you have a few spare days to read, on my website,www.EspressoMyEspresso.com, check out this article: 12 - EASY GUIDE TO BETTER ESPRESSO AT HOME.

Also, try a different coffee from a different source.

Water conditioners detoxify chlorine (and also heavy metals/ammonia depending on the conditioner), but they do not change the general hardness.

120 ppm = 7 dGH, which is just a touch on the harder side and should be totally fine for a betta.

However, test strips are super inaccurate - you will need a liquid test kit instead, GH and KH tests sold separately.

I don't really test for pH, but I do test for residual alkalinity of my source water. Using those numbers along with a water chemistry calculator can get you pretty close to knowing how much acid malt to add for instance.

For the residual alkalinity I use an aquarium GH/KH test kit.

Here’s a good GH/KH kit. Costs like $7. test kit

They look like it might be ich. Have they been puffing their gills out or rubbing on things? Are they darting back and forth? You could check out Goldfish Emergency and see if the symptoms match. Sometimes anti-ich medicine won't work if you don't clean the tank thoroughly enough.

Also, I can tell you that you have too many fish in there. That might be okay for the fantails, but the comets put you over capacity. Goldies also like water between 65-75 degrees Fahrenheit, so if you can try and lower the temperature a bit slowly. Only a degree every few hours.

In addition, are you checking amonia, nitrites, nitrates, and pH? If not, you need to go and get a tester kit. i also strongly reccomend a GH & KH test kit as well as your goldies will be much happier with proper water hardness and if they are sick it will also help them heal more quickly.

Please provide more information for your tank. We need size, number of fish, species of fish, and your water parameters (testing with a liquid test kit by API not paper strips those are useless). If you can, please also test for GH and KH values as well. You have plants so at night their respiration flips so they take in oxygen and put off carbon dioxide. This can crash an imbalanced tank and cause drastic daily changes in your pH.

Snails themselves will not harm a fish but in very high numbers will begin to have a significant effect on your bioload and can affect your ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate.

What species of fish were you mixing with goldfish? It's generally not recommended because goldfish require colder temperatures than most other fish and put off far too much ammonia for them to handle.

Staying at the surface indicates stress. If they're also gulping water at the surface then you have an oxygen deprivation issue. Did you suddenly add more fish than normal? It's possible your tank was already maxed out for bioload and the extra fish caused it to crash. Adding to many fish at once can also cause problems as your current bacteria colony needs to adjust to the higher amount of waste being produced.

I have never come across a product that claimed to rid a tank of nitrates that worked. At best, they can prevent more nitrates from being produced (such as seachem purigen) but they're not cure-alls.

At the very least, do a 50% water change and see if they improve. Get the test kits I mentioned ASAP and start testing your water on a weekly basis. You can do hundreds of tests with a single kit so they're actually less expensive than paper strips in the long run.

API Master Test Kit.

GH and KH test kit.

You’d be surprised how different your water parameters can be from the same source. I moved 2 miles (same water supply) but the TDS dropped in half and the kH and gH were lower. It’s worth to check yourself and API makes a test for gH and kH.


https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003SNCHMA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_yCv4Db91P83QJ

Here's what I use, maybe someone else can suggest differently as I'm still a novice...

• TDS Meter
  
• API Freshwater Test Kit
  
• gH/kH Test Kit
  
  O_O Looks like the price on the API test kit went up! I bought mine for $21, ouch.

By acidity I meant pH.

You can get a hardness test kit here: API GH & KH TEST KIT Freshwater Aquarium Water Test Kit https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003SNCHMA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_92KOBbPX5NHAT

Also as a general rule of thumb for most fish, you should keep a ratio of 1:2 Male to Females, so one male for every 2 females.

I put your stuff into Aquadvisor and it said that sword tails are not recommended to be with mollies due to interbreeding possibilities...but it's just a warning.

Also it probably wouldn't hurt to know your Co2 levels, as the fish could be deprived of oxygen. There are charts online that help you figure it out, you basically cross reference your pH with your hardness.

It could have died of stress if all levels are fine.

Check out this kit:
API GH & KH TEST KIT Freshwater Aquarium Water Test Kit https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003SNCHMA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_bybCCbHR6HQX2

Gives you a drop wise measurement of hardness and alkalinity (kh/carbonate hardness).

1)Aquarium lights using a quantitative measure known as PAR to help assess the intensity of light at varying levels. In essence, the further you are away from a point source, the more light diffuses and the less intense it becomes, use this chart to verify your PAR levels before considering a medium or high lights plants.

PAR levels of Finnex Fugeray Planted Plus light

2) Do you have algae problems? If not yet, giving any excess light, co2 or ferts will cause algae to thrive in your tank. They will take the excess nutrients and breed like wildfire. You have to strike a balance in your tank as excess of light, co2 or nutrients will be taken up by unwanted algae. Low level lights should be on for 12 hours, medium for about 8 and high for about 6. This is all relative and you need to play with the time to dial it in. The co2 needs to be turned on 2 hours before lights go on so that the plants can begin photosynthesizing right away, and off one hour before the lights go off to give them a "break".

CO2 Basics

Balancing light, ferts and co2

3) Dry fertilizers are a much better, more economical way to go in the long run but you have to do research on this if you plan to use them, as too much can cause algae blooms or worse. Here is a great source for them. There are also other sellers, which are a quick google search away. Remember the upfront cost of $25.00 may wrinkle your nose, but you will literally use these for years if you buy dry ferts in bulk like this.

PPS-PRO fertilizers GLA

Information on Fertilizers and dosing methods

4) Get a GH/KH kit from amazon, it will tell you how hard your water is, and depending on the plants that you want to keep it will indicate how much work that you will need to do to keep them happy.

GH/KH test kit

Basic info on GH/KH

OK, so here's one problem - you are not going to get accurate results with test strips. But, I don't know what your finance situation is, so maybe you need to use them for now and anything is certainly better than nothing. If you have a few bucks to spend, get a test kit like this one, which will test much of what you want to know about except water hardness, but this one does that.

Your nitrates aren't bad. Before we talk about things to try, I have to say the following: if you change more than one thing at a time you will never know what's working and what isn't. Try one change at a time, give each change two or three days to make a difference, keep a written record with dates (and time, if you're obsessive like me), and don't just write down what you change. Try to include things you observe, and try to take cell phone pics so you can accurately measure change. Be patient, observe the tank daily, be patient, and try to be patient.

An 8 hour split may be too much with the Nicrew, but it really isn't way overboard. I do a 7 hour split but I have no experience with Nicrews, I have two Finnex Planteds and a BeamsWork, and I don't know when you changed to the Nicrew and your 8 hour regimen. You could try a blackout for a few days, and then back to your current regimen.

If your light is sitting atop your tank you can try raising it a bit. A 10 gallon is what? 12 inches tall? You can jerry rig something to raise the light, or you can get something like this, or you can hang the light from the ceiling with fishing line. If you have aquascaping tweezers you can pull algae out manually, or you can use a toothbrush; not to brush the leaves, but to grab the algae in the bristles and pull it out. I've tried all of these things in different tanks, with good results. I've also used Seachem Excel, but only once or twice a week, not daily as the directions say. It definitely helps, but it isn't a cure and it only kills the algae, like the Algaefix you are already using. If you use Excel, wash your hands afterward. There are some scary and, to my mind not very scholarly, articles on the web about the chemical used in Excel, which Seachem claims is a different isomer than what it actually uses. But wash your hands afterward anyway - it's a simple precaution. Keep this in mind: if you use either one, it will make it harder to tell if the other things you are doing are having any effect. So, maybe bite the bullet for a couple weeks to try the other things, and if you start making headway you can use just a bit of the Algaefix or Excel to help push things along.

You should also consider how heavily planted your tank is. More plant load is better to out-compete the algae. If you have a lot of plants, you also want to provide them with nutrients or the light is next to useless. A good way to increase the plant load inexpensively and relatively fast is floaters. Check the AquaSwap forum here on reddit - /r/AquaSwap/, but keep in mind that you cannot be certain that you will not get snails with the plants, even if the seller claims the plants are dipped before shipping. Snails are not a bad thing, and would probably be helpful for you. Another inexpensive way to beat algae! And, if they get out of hand you just stick a stainless steel fork in a hunk of cucumber, put it in the tank for about two hours, grab a zip-loc baggie and hold it in the tank, grab the fork, put the cucumber and snails in the bag, pull the fork out of the cucumber, and close the bag. Into the garbage with it. It will be covered with snails.

Getting back to the floaters, they will suck up nitrates, provide shade for your anubias, and you'll be pulling handfuls out of the tank in no time (into the garbage! don't take a chance of letting them into the wild by throwing them in your yard). You can keep the floaters corralled with clear air line tubing and suction cups. Make sure the diameter matches, like these do. Cut a length of hose, heat near one end while holding the end so you can pull it until it comes off, leaving a pointy end that you can now stick into the other end of your length of hose, creating a circle. I use the silicon repair stuff to "glue" it together. This guy shows you a better way to do it, in his second video in the series at 2:45. But if you want to get motivated for your algae war, watch the entire series. You will never be the same. And after that, go learn here.

There are a lot more things you can do, but maybe start with these and keep reading about this stuff whenever you get a chance. Good Luck, and let us know how you make out.

I don’t think you want an alkalinity tester, unless you’re looking at something that gives multiple types of read outs? This will measure KH. ppm and dKH are both measurements of concentration and can be converted back and forth. The API kit has a nice little table that directly tells you how many ppm is equivalent to a given dKH. There are probably tables online too

You can get a test kit for $8 on Amazon. https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003SNCHMA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_MlIaBb9KNMRDR
It's essentially performing a titration to test carbonate hardness (KH). That is the single biggest measure of the buffer you have that is keeping your pH stable. If KH is low, your PH is pretty much guaranteed to be unstable.

Make sure you cycle your tank before adding the fish in. If you don't know what that is, read this guide: https://www.fishkeeping.co.uk/articles_51/fishless-cycling-article.htm

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As for the gravel issue, the problem with that coloured gravel is that the unnatural colours can stress out the fish, not that it is inert. Substrate is there to stop the fish from feeling stressed (it provides a more natural environment and doesn't reflect fish like the glass bottom does), to decorate the tank, to host beneficial bacteria that help with the nitrogen cycle, if you have bottom-feeding fish like corydoras to allow them to forage through it as they would in the wild and, if you have root-feeding plants, to provide nutrients for them. However, some plants feed through the water column instead, and if you do have root-feeding plants, you will probably want root tabs or a soil substrate to provide nutrients (this doesn't have to cover the whole tank). Gravel isn't normally what you would use to provide nutrients to plants, anyway, so it being inert doesn't make it useless.

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Shells and even some substrates can be used to add minerals to the water to harden it, but whether or not you will need this depends on what the water in your local area is like and the species of fish you are keeping. Bettas generally like quite soft water, so this probably wouldn't be necessary. You should be able to check how hard the water in your area is with a google search. If not, you can get testing kits for this such as this API one https://www.amazon.co.uk/API-CALCIUM-Saltwater-Aquarium-1-Count/dp/B003SNCHMA?th=1 You'll also want to research the preferred water hardness of whatever species of fish you are keeping. If you do need to raise it, you will be able to do it more accurately by using a product such as seachem equilibrium, or mixing magnesium and calcium yourself, but you will need to research how to do this. Shells and substrates that raise water hardness are normally used for fish that need extremely hard water, such as cichlids.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003SNCHMA/ref=cm_sw_r_sms_apa_zVhlybM53ZDAG


Here ya go brother. Cheapest I've seen it. Comes with everything you need including glass vials.

Excel itself is simply a source of carbon for the plants - some love it, and some hate it (mostly mosses and algae related plants). Excel is a stand-in or supplement for a proper Co2 system - plants need Co2 to grow - fish will produce small amounts of Co2 and plants produce Co2 at night in small quantities, but a proper system will be needed to reach high levels of dissolved Co2, which may or may not be needed for certain plants. Adding Co2 will drop the pH in the tank, so it will need to be closely regulated - I'm not sure if Excel effects the pH. I do use Excel but my tanks all have Co2 regulators tied to the pH so any drop in pH would stall my Co2 and hold the pH at a stable level.

Plants need a lot of other things to survive. Different plants will need different levels of nutrition, but the primary ferts to look at would be carbonates/bicarbonates, minerals, nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium.

Carbonates and Bicarbonates are measured as "KH", aka Carbonate Hardness.

Minerals are measured as "GH", aka General Hardness.

Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium are the main elements in most fertilizers, and are known as the NPK values or NPK ratio, see Labeling of fertilizer.

KH and GH can be tested for using simple tests such as the highly regarded API test kit. Most tap water has some level of KH and GH that's probably fine for most plants, but it's something to look into, and you should definitely be increasing both if you're using distilled or RO water. Aquatic life such as fish and invertebrates will need a KH and GH that match their natural habitat, most plants are more forgiving. Seachem sells both Equilibrium for GH and Alkaline Buffer for KH. Alkaline Buffer can also be used with Acid Buffer which converts KH into Co2.

As for general ferts, root tabs can be great, but you can also use liquid fertilizers, such as Seachem's line of Nitrogen, Phosphorus, and Potassium, along with Seachem Flourish. Whether to choose a liquid fertilizer or root tabs largely comes down to the kind of plant as some get most of their nutrients from the water column and some get them mostly from the substrate. A good indicator is where the roots are on the plant. If the plant mostly or only has roots below the substrate, then of course root tabs is a good option, but some plants will also have roots above the substrate which means they will be able to grab nutrients out of the water column with ease.

There are a lot of other trace elements that plants can benefit from, but the primary ones you need to look out for are NPK. Sorry to throw you into the deep end, so to speak, but Excel on its own is not nearly enough to provide proper nutrition for plants, and depending on your setup and what you're doing to treat your incoming water, you may not be doing enough to support a planted tank.

you can get the [api gh kh test] (https://www.amazon.com/API-TEST-Freshwater-Aquarium-Water/dp/B003SNCHMA) and that will give you exact numbers on how hard it is (gh) and the calcium in the water (kh)

okay, i set out the cup to test it again tomorrow.
is this a good test? i can't get it right away but i'll do it asap. if it turns out my kh is too low, what can i do to fix that?

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003SNCHMA/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_apa_i_D9nRDb9GKMKG0

1. You can get a digital TDS (total dissolved solids) meter or the API GH/KH liquid test kit.
   From my understanding, dH (German degree of hardness) is not a specific measurement but rather a conversion to/from ppm (1 dH = 17.5mg/L or ppm).
   
   
2. Snails (even the pest/pond/bladder variety) are generally a good thing. A sudden bloom of snails probably indicates overfeeding, as your snail population directly reflects the amount of food available for them to eat. Less food = less snails. Feeding less and cleaning more should decrease the population, but you might want to keep the ones you have to clean up what's already available in the tank. Afterwards, their population will regulate itself.

The gh/kh test drop kits are available on amazon for 6 bucks with prime/free shipping, this was about 10 dollars less than my local petsmart. Also the master test kit is about 6 bucks cheaper on amazon as well. Good luck with your shrimps :)


... I don't work for amazon or anything, I just really like a good deal, and was kinda miffed at petsmart for trying to overcharge so much.

I use test kits from API:
pH, ammonia, nitrite, nitrate, hardness

For their main food source, I use calcium-enriched algae pellets.

Not every cray will eat fish, so I wouldn't worry about that at all.

A 10 gallon might be ok for your crayfish right now, but it will eventually require at least a 20 gallon tank (ideally 30+).

Here are some steps you can take to help out your cray:

• Remove any old food. Do a 50%+ water change, being sure to use a dechlorinating water conditioner like Prime. Make sure the water is about the same temperature as your tank. Repeat water changes at least every other week. Test your parameters to make sure they are ok!
  
• Turn your tank lights off (if you have any) and add some more hiding spaces. Try not to spend too much time right next to the tank, or interacting with your cray in any way. It needs time to adjust to its new surroundings. It probably doesn't feel safe just yet.
  
• Offer a small piece of algae wafer or blanched vegetable every other day or two. Remove it if not eaten.
  
  It's great that you're reaching out for more information. It sounds like you and your cray will really benefit from doing some more online research. Read up, there is a lot to learn!

If spring water, read label first. In my area bottled spring water is 300 ppm TDS, while tap is way less.

If you can afford, use GH/KH test kit, it costs no more than any other kit. TDS meter would be nice too, here is why, and compare tank water parameters to

• your tap water parameters
  
  
• and to your aquatic animals requirements, available online in search for species name and GH.
  
  Then you will know if limescale is because of evaporation and using not distilled or RO water to compensate evaporation, concentration of minerals increases, if water changes are not too big.
  
  Or if your water is too hard for your animals, and you have dilute it, and do this by calculating dilution without guessing.
  
  Or your water could be just right for your animals, if they are hard water animals.
  
  If you have tap water pressure enough to run RO filter (for big tank) or you can buy bottled distilled water (for small tank), you could create artificial water with optimal for them GH, by adding GH/KH+ remineralizer. I'm using Salty Shrimp, but there are different brands. A small amount needed, dissolves fast, producing every time the same optimal water.

Here are more links, if you don't mind:

pH, you don't need to change it, even for discus, softest water fish.

Why so, with too much avoidable chemistry. Ignore salt part, replace it by specific for this fish kind of remineralizer. Interesting part is that there is certain ratio between GH and KH for each kind of fish and shrimp (soft, medium and hard water, plus lake-specific), inside of description of each remineralizer.

GH/KH test kit is readily available if specialized fish stores, online and on Amazon, and is much more important tan pH test, because KH and pH are connected, and GH is essential for diluting water with distilled or RO water, to reach optima values. You can replace measuring pH by using this kit, more useful.

Lowering pH reduces KH, if uncontrollable, you can have too little KH to keep pH stable, and can create deadly pH swings (you can catch them if test pH every few hours). Change in 1 unit pH is 10x actual change (logarithmic scale). In short, better don't do it.

With dissolved substances, the whole picture is a bit more complicated:

• Ca and Mg (calcuim and magnesium, maybe you remember this from a school) contribute to GH, unrelated to PH testing.
  
  
• Total dissolved solids (TDS, measurable by TDS pen), is for everything in the water that is no H2O, including Ca, Mg and organics.
  
  
• Total suspended solids (TSS) are irrelevant to this conversation, we deal with them by using filtration.
  
  In short, using pH test for estimating GH, TDS is not a way to do this.
  
  Againg, if you don't mind and are willing to know these nitty-gritty details, read more about this before restocking. Really hard water fish is usually African cichlids, large fish, unless I'm mistaken. Some are successfully keeping fish and shrimp in kind of "liquid rock water", do reddit search for this and fish or shrimp to see what they are keeping. And, to be on the safe side, find online official data for water parameters for your city, to be sure that your wate is hard and how much hard, then you can narrow search for, say, 400 ppm TDS.
  
  I had to do all of this too, while started just as you.

It's general hardness and carbonate hardness. These two parameters are important in a shrimp tank. RCS need a GH of 6–8 and KH of 2-5. From the picture you posted, the white band below the head can be from lack of GH, too much protein, their growth is faster than their body can molt.

You can get a test like this one https://www.amazon.com/API-GH-KH-Test-Kit/dp/B003SNCHMA

Check this out https://www.aquariumcreation.com/blogs/news/setting-up-a-shrimp-tank when you can. It should give you a good overview of what your shrimp need.

Yeah i think the shells will grow back. No problem, glad I could help!

You should also get a hardness & carbonate hardness test kit.

would this work to test?

https://www.amazon.com/API-GH-KH-Test-Kit/dp/B003SNCHMA/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466430907&sr=8-1&keywords=aquarium+water+hardness+test

The API kit I bought had PH, high range PH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate testing, I thought that'd be enough.


But all the like, seriously fish and liveaqauria stuff keep listing preferred PHs so I was kind of worried when I saw that. They listed kribs as being OK to 8.0 at least so I thought they might be an option. Damn damn damn