Hello everyone,
I'm a bit confused with what I read concerning tank running at 0 dKH.
6 month ago I changed the way I prepare my WC water. I was mixing my really hard tapwater with RO and I started just remineralizing the RO with Calcium and Magnesium compound. Effectively pushing my tanks water to 0 alcalinity (in the the 60L one, the aquasoil doesn't buffer anything since a long time). I've done it after having read and view on this forum that you can perfectly run a tank like this. I didn't encountered any issue and and it definitively improved my plants health.
My tanks are really low stocking level, heavily planted, weak or no filtration, no or low level CO2 injection (DYI jello method). I never mesure pH knowing it doesn't really make sense without buffering capacity.
Now what confuse me :
On one hand, It seems pretty accepted on this forum that the way my tanks run are totally acceptable and it doesn't represent a risk of crash. On the other hand, I see lots of discussion around dosing carbonate and bicarbonate ( like in this recent thread : Sodium and plants ). It seems also pretty accepted that bacteria consume kH when processing ammonia and nitrite.
What do we know about nitrification in water at 0dKH ?
Is nitrification limited by the lack of carbonate and bicarbonate and I would have issue with a higher bioload and less plantmass ?
If nitrification is not limited, what are the advantage to dosing kH (I don't see any apart for the obvious one like having fish needing hardwater) ?
What does nitrifying bacteria consume when they don't find kH or is it different species of bacteria (that don't need kH) who take the job of nitrification in those conditions ?
Would I have issue with pH crash if I was dosing high amount of CO2 ? The CO2/pH/dKH relation is still a bit mysterious for me.
I think I remember reading about other ions buffering the pH ? I dose a good amount of fertilizer, does it play a role ?
I'm a bit confused with what I read concerning tank running at 0 dKH.
6 month ago I changed the way I prepare my WC water. I was mixing my really hard tapwater with RO and I started just remineralizing the RO with Calcium and Magnesium compound. Effectively pushing my tanks water to 0 alcalinity (in the the 60L one, the aquasoil doesn't buffer anything since a long time). I've done it after having read and view on this forum that you can perfectly run a tank like this. I didn't encountered any issue and and it definitively improved my plants health.
My tanks are really low stocking level, heavily planted, weak or no filtration, no or low level CO2 injection (DYI jello method). I never mesure pH knowing it doesn't really make sense without buffering capacity.
Now what confuse me :
On one hand, It seems pretty accepted on this forum that the way my tanks run are totally acceptable and it doesn't represent a risk of crash. On the other hand, I see lots of discussion around dosing carbonate and bicarbonate ( like in this recent thread : Sodium and plants ). It seems also pretty accepted that bacteria consume kH when processing ammonia and nitrite.
What do we know about nitrification in water at 0dKH ?
Is nitrification limited by the lack of carbonate and bicarbonate and I would have issue with a higher bioload and less plantmass ?
If nitrification is not limited, what are the advantage to dosing kH (I don't see any apart for the obvious one like having fish needing hardwater) ?
What does nitrifying bacteria consume when they don't find kH or is it different species of bacteria (that don't need kH) who take the job of nitrification in those conditions ?
Would I have issue with pH crash if I was dosing high amount of CO2 ? The CO2/pH/dKH relation is still a bit mysterious for me.
I think I remember reading about other ions buffering the pH ? I dose a good amount of fertilizer, does it play a role ?