Testing Water's Hardness?

[dwall174]

Has anyone used a Salifert KH/Alkalinity kit to test their hardness in an African tank? I just set-up an African tank & figured that I could use my Salifert Kit! Is there some type of conversion table to convert the Salifert’s kit reading of KH Value in dKH or meq/L, into the GH or DH scale?

[Stang69]

Off the top of my head I cant recall anythign bout it. May wanna check Salferts website or maybe email them


Jeff

[dwall174]

Yea I checked their web site & they don’t have the freshwater section up yet! I did finely get an answer on RC in the Salifert Forum, From what I was told there’s no way to convert the two.

The problem I’m having now is trying to find a GH test kit! All the pet stores around me either have those cheep dip strips (which I don’t like) or just the KH hardness kit, Which would give me the same reading as my Salifert Kit? It just doesn’t make sense to me! All the information on the Africans I’m planning on keeping states the hardness in GH or DH & all the test kits I have seen are in KH?

The only test kit I can find locally that claims to read in GH is from Jungle & it also states it reads in KH

[Stang69]

I used the dip strips and seemed to work ok.



Jeff

[dwall174]

How do the strips work on both KH & GH? From what I have read they are different tests? KH is Carbonate Hardness Alkalinity, And GH is General Hardness which is a combination of Magnesium & Calcium? Being that I already have the Salifert KH/Alk kit all I would need is the GH kit!

I can get my LFS to order almost any thing I need! Salifert or SeaChem would have been my choice! However neither of them carry the GH kit? Do you have a preferred GH or KH/GH test kit?

[Stang69]

there is a pad for both I believe. Its been so long Ill have to check and see. Ill run out this afternoon and look



Jeff

[dwall174]

Originally Posted by Stang69

there is a pad for both I believe.

Well that makes a little more sense.

[dwall174]

Originally Posted by Stang69

Off the top of my head I cant recall anythign bout it

Ok I found this Calculator So would I use the Alk in meq/L # of the Salifert kit? According to my reading the KH Value = 5.8 in dKH! or 2.06 in meq/L

I thought Africans would be easy compared to SW!