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can i add garden lime to my tank since it is just crushed limestone right, might buy some today

oz196

Can I ask. For what reason do you want to add the "Garden Lime" and in what amounts?

Keith

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NO! If you want to affect your hardness use baking soda. If you want to kill your fish use garden lime.

Last edited by bob wesolowski at 01-Feb-2005 02:19

__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

garden lime is crushed limestone, limestone is ok to add to tanks. trying to raise the hardness of my tank to help prevent pH swings, baking soda will raise the pH to
also I decided to use baking soda and added some yesterday, my lfs is going to order me a piece of limestone made for tanks

Hi,
When you add limestone, you are raising the wrong hardness!
Limestone, dolomite, coral, oyster shells, and others
are all part of the carbonate family. Limestone and
dolomite contain Calcium (Ca) and Magnesium (Mg). Your
General Hardness (GH) testers test for these elements
specifically. The only reason to add these things is
if your water is down in the low 6s for pH, and you want
to keep more alkaline fish such as African Rifts and want
the pH up around 8.0.

If you want to lower any "pH swing" or BUFFER it as it is
called, then you need to increase your Carbonate Hardness
(KH) and you do that, most effectively, with the addition
of regular, unscented, baking soda.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Frank you stated in an earlier post
"The use of rocks from the carbonate family such as Limestone dolomite, and others, will in the long term raise the KH and GH of the water"
I am looking to raise both
my test kit shows that both are low
thanks