I enjoy your Koi lab videos and chapeau to your efforts to bring proper practical science into the arena of koi keeping. I wonder why you don't consider adding food grade bicarbonate of soda to help with KH. Many of us in the frozen North have extremely soft water at KH 1-2 and so water changes / run through actually degrade the KH status of the pond, rather than increasing it. At the moment, I am using 500g per week to balance 240g food daily at 13.5C water. Bought in a 25kg box, it is economical and I just tip the cups into my airlifts and let the bubbles break it up and dissolve it.
It’s a good suggestion and I did use bicarbonate of soda in one of my experiments keeping my filter going during the winter in a barrel in the garage, although not sure I mentioned it in the video. It does dissolve more easily than calcium carbonate, I wonder if there are any drawbacks as it seems less used here in the UK? I was a bit concerned about a build up of sodium in the water compared to calcium. Thanks for sharing
Hi Thanks for the effort. A suggestion for a experiment. If you put crushed oystershells in exess of what would bee a reasonable amount. Would this drive up KH and or pH (or other unforseen effect) or would the amount of disolving correlate to the amount of CO2 etc beeing produced. Would there be any negative effects of having a surplus amount of crushed oystershells in the water. Eirik
From a quick google it looks like 9-10 is the equilibrium for calcium carbonate in excess which would be too high for koi. However I would expect that a pond would remain some way off this level with a lower pH even if there’s plenty of oyster shells as I don’t think oyster shells are particularly fast at offering up their calcium carbonate due to a lower surface area compared to powdered chalk. I know from previous experiments that you can get the KH to over 20 degrees with an excess of chalk powder, I didn’t measure the pH though. You’d need a massive dose to do this in a pond though, which I wouldn’t advise!
Yes but there will be benneficial to stay on the positive side of kh buffering. The unansvered question is. Will there be exess buffering with a large amount of crushed oystershells. I have put in a 10kg bag of crushed shells in 40-50m3 and i messured 1 degree of kh. Eirik
Due to a mistaken choice of cat litter (do not use Catsan) in some anoxic baskets I was using, the lime caused a huge increase in GH and pH. It topped out at 36GH before I took them out and remade them with Moler Clay (Kittyfriend). The fish were unconcerned by that and by me doing a daily run through of 10% until I was down at GH10 and no longer adding vinegar to maintain a decent pH. I have lots of Oyster Shells in the side ponds in my system. They don't dissolve very much in my water which sits just short of PH8 but they do provide some more growing space for beneficial bacteria and if I fail to notice a deteriorating KH and falling pH, they will dissolve more quickly and hopefully give me a better chance of avoiding a catastrophe.
I enjoy your Koi lab videos and chapeau to your efforts to bring proper practical science into the arena of koi keeping.
I wonder why you don't consider adding food grade bicarbonate of soda to help with KH. Many of us in the frozen North have extremely soft water at KH 1-2 and so water changes / run through actually degrade the KH status of the pond, rather than increasing it. At the moment, I am using 500g per week to balance 240g food daily at 13.5C water. Bought in a 25kg box, it is economical and I just tip the cups into my airlifts and let the bubbles break it up and dissolve it.
It’s a good suggestion and I did use bicarbonate of soda in one of my experiments keeping my filter going during the winter in a barrel in the garage, although not sure I mentioned it in the video. It does dissolve more easily than calcium carbonate, I wonder if there are any drawbacks as it seems less used here in the UK? I was a bit concerned about a build up of sodium in the water compared to calcium. Thanks for sharing
Sounds like you need to set up a dosing system.
Hi
Thanks for the effort.
A suggestion for a experiment.
If you put crushed oystershells in exess of what would bee a reasonable amount. Would this drive up KH and or pH (or other unforseen effect) or would the amount of disolving correlate to the amount of CO2 etc beeing produced.
Would there be any negative effects of having a surplus amount of crushed oystershells in the water.
Eirik
From a quick google it looks like 9-10 is the equilibrium for calcium carbonate in excess which would be too high for koi. However I would expect that a pond would remain some way off this level with a lower pH even if there’s plenty of oyster shells as I don’t think oyster shells are particularly fast at offering up their calcium carbonate due to a lower surface area compared to powdered chalk.
I know from previous experiments that you can get the KH to over 20 degrees with an excess of chalk powder, I didn’t measure the pH though. You’d need a massive dose to do this in a pond though, which I wouldn’t advise!
Yes but there will be benneficial to stay on the positive side of kh buffering. The unansvered question is. Will there be exess buffering with a large amount of crushed oystershells.
I have put in a 10kg bag of crushed shells in 40-50m3 and i messured 1 degree of kh.
Eirik
Due to a mistaken choice of cat litter (do not use Catsan) in some anoxic baskets I was using, the lime caused a huge increase in GH and pH. It topped out at 36GH before I took them out and remade them with Moler Clay (Kittyfriend). The fish were unconcerned by that and by me doing a daily run through of 10% until I was down at GH10 and no longer adding vinegar to maintain a decent pH. I have lots of Oyster Shells in the side ponds in my system. They don't dissolve very much in my water which sits just short of PH8 but they do provide some more growing space for beneficial bacteria and if I fail to notice a deteriorating KH and falling pH, they will dissolve more quickly and hopefully give me a better chance of avoiding a catastrophe.
Hi. What about trickle in trickle out?