aotf Posted January 23, 2018 Report Share Posted January 23, 2018 I'm in the process of cycling an 8 gal I wanted to use to breed cards and my kH keeps bouncing up. At first, I thought it was because I forgot to rinse off my gravel so I figured I'd just do some water changes and it would fix itself. Many 50% changes and a couple weeks later, my tank is still at kH 4. I finally took my blinders off and realized my seiryu stone may be to blame. I knew it would push up kH when I put it in the tank but I thought it would be by 1 degree from the supply, not 3-4 degrees after a day. I'd never really used seiryu before (well, knockoff seiryu) so I wasn't aware how much it would leech. The problem is that I like my scape. I know the easiest solution is to just rip it up and replace the stones with some inert ones (ohko, pa hai, granite, others...) but I'd like to know if the current situation is workable. Will my seiryu leech less over time? Can I counter the kH creep with peat/IAL/alder cones? Can I counter the creep with regular water changes? Thanks for any advice. Pics so you can see how much stone there is. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Memphis118 Posted January 23, 2018 Report Share Posted January 23, 2018 From my understanding, the stone will continue to leach, and won't slow down. Best option would be to replace the stone in my opinion. I've also read somewhere (I could be wrong) that you can take the stone out, and put a sealant on the stone so it wont leach. Not sure how that would work entirely, but I just recall reading about it a while ago. Good luck! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wyzazz Posted January 23, 2018 Report Share Posted January 23, 2018 The scape looks sweet! But if you want to keep the KH from rocketing up you'll need to remove the stone. I don't believe they stop leeching or leech less over time, from what I understand they decompose constantly and continue to leech minerals into the water while they do so. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aotf Posted January 23, 2018 Author Report Share Posted January 23, 2018 8 hours ago, Memphis118 said: From my understanding, the stone will continue to leach, and won't slow down. Best option would be to replace the stone in my opinion. I've also read somewhere (I could be wrong) that you can take the stone out, and put a sealant on the stone so it wont leach. Not sure how that would work entirely, but I just recall reading about it a while ago. Good luck! 2 hours ago, wyzazz said: The scape looks sweet! But if you want to keep the KH from rocketing up you'll need to remove the stone. I don't believe they stop leeching or leech less over time, from what I understand they decompose constantly and continue to leech minerals into the water while they do so. These are the answers I didn't want to hear but I guess it's better to rip off the bandaid now rather than try and fail to make this work for cards. What a shame, I feel so dumb for spending so much time and effort on this tank while neglecting such an easy mistake. This is the kind of thing I would have told anyone else not to do but then managed to convince myself was a good idea. I'll start looking into different stones, I've always wanted to mess with pa-hai (although I don't know how it'll look with my substrate exposed). The sealant sounds interesting, my guess is that it's a matte epoxy coat. I'll let you know if I give it a shot. EDIT: I'm going to take a small bit of extra seiryu to work today and give it an epoxy clear-coat. I'm curious to see if it looks bad underwater once it's cured. Don't want that epoxy sheen! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chappy6107 Posted January 23, 2018 Report Share Posted January 23, 2018 I have some Ohko stone (dragon stone) at home. I used it for several years without any notice of the kh climbing. It looked great in the tanks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
aotf Posted January 23, 2018 Author Report Share Posted January 23, 2018 14 hours ago, Memphis118 said: I've also read somewhere (I could be wrong) that you can take the stone out, and put a sealant on the stone so it wont leach. Not sure how that would work entirely, but I just recall reading about it a while ago. Update! I covered half a rock with a thin layer of epoxy. I did my best to rough it up with a toothbrush but it is noticeably shinier and smoother than the untreated portion. The upside? It actually looks better both dry and wet, providing more contrast and making the colors of the rock more visible. My only concern is that mosses are going to have a hard time adhering to the rocks. I'm strongly leaning towards covering all my rocks since I'd have to replace them anyway. The next test will be to see what happens to kH with more epoxied seiryu in the tank. I'm thinking that if I can cover 95-98% of the rock surfaces with epoxy, kH creep should be negligible to manageable. Dry: Wet: oem, wyzazz and Memphis118 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Memphis118 Posted January 24, 2018 Report Share Posted January 24, 2018 Good luck Let me know how it turns out, I am very curious if it works as well. Also, Don't worry, we've all made the same mistakes.. haha. I originally used SS as well, and it leached KH and I couldnt figure out why. Now I use Ohko Stone (dragon stone) as well. Works well Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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