I am starting a big planted tank and I am trying to grow some low light plants in my 10 gal. qaurintine for practice. I have a drop checker and I followed the directions when setting it up. The fluid inside the drop checker is supposed to turn green if your PH and CO2 levels are in the right range,mine remains blue. I have been adding Flourish excel per the directions and get no change. What can I do to rectify the situation? I plan on running CO2 on the big tank but I am unsure what to try on this 10 gal. Thanks Tom

Are you adding Co2 to the 10g? If so this will cause your PH to drop as Co2 is acidic.

Water with a low KH (carbonate hardness) will not maintain a high PH.

Do you have a test kit for checking things like PH, ammonia, nitrites, nitrates, KH, GH?

If not you should. Stay away from test strips and go with the liquid kits for accuracy.

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Thanks I will pick up a new test kit today and get back to you.

What form of CO2 system do you have? Pressurized or DIY? Excel will do nothing for the drop checker.

I'm not sure I understand the title of the thread. What does keeping the ph up have to do with it? If you are adding CO2, your ph will drop. When you use CO2 and you're trying to get a green indication on the drop checker, the biggest thing that impacts it is your KH. A high KH and you may never reach green, or you may kill your fish trying. Test your KH.

I don't have CO2 on the 10 gal. I am planning on using pressurized on the 150gal. I got a test kit and the hardness is off the top of the scale. So how do I soften the water?

In order for the drop checker to work you will have to have CO2 going in the tank.That is the purpose of it.You use the color to determine if you have enough CO2 or too much,by the color.So if you dont have any CO2 going in the tank,DIY or pressurized,then you wont really need to be monitoring it.I suggest if you want to use it,to setup a DIY with a bottle of water sugar and yeast.

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"Come to the dark side....we have cookies...and filters/heaters/and water changes!"

Is there a set of directions on here? IS THERE A WAY TO SOFTEN MY WATER?

Do you want a natural way or a chemical way?They have water softener pillows,you can use driftwood,peat,blackwater extract.Or CO2.That drop checker isnt really going to work without the addition of CO2 though.Its supposed to turn green when you have enough dissolved in the water.Blue I think is not enough and yellow is too much.Im not sure why you would want to use in without CO2,though so im kinda confused.

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"Come to the dark side....we have cookies...and filters/heaters/and water changes!"

I was planning on using it on the 150 gal. with pressurized CO2 I was just trying it out on the 10 gal. I did not know you had to add CO2 for it to work. If someone can send me a link with directions for above mentioned DIY CO2 bottle I will try that on my 10 gal. I have no proir experience with planted tanks. I am trying to figure some of this out on the small tank before going to a big setup,hoping to save myself alot of trouble on a big scale.Any links on softening your water would be helpful also. Thanks Tom

On my tanks I use peat moss in the substrate to keep KH at 4 degrees an dgh at 9 degrees.

We need more information from your tests. API had a drop checker double kit for kh and gh. And have your water tested for ph. if above 7.6 get the api high range test kit. below get the ph test kit.

All my tanks have a pH of 8.4-8.8 with the api high range test kit. With and without peat moss substrates, FW and marine. Because of the plant action of consuming carbon dioxide raising the pH. Which can hardly be harmful to the fish. In fact fish "requiring" a pH of 7 or lower (hatchetfish, tetras for example) thrive and live for years.

Before you reach from some chemical to change pH or other parameters first look at the health of your plants and fish. IMHO with healthy plants and fish the best thing to do is nothing. (Or at least keep doing what you are currently doing).


my .02

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fw leiden since 1979, fo salt since 1979, mixed reef 55g 2002-2009. Strong emphasis on the tank taking care of itself. Balanced with plant life, no water changes, tap water, no filters in FW. Only dosing calcium, alk, mag in marine reef tanks. http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/my-...ods-26410.html
recent tanks (till 2009) 7 years- 10g FW leiden 7 yrs, 55g mixed reef 7, 2 yrs, 20g FW leiden, 10 g fw leiden , 29g mixed reef, current tank 55g leiden