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Oh yes , i know that gh kh now is increasing my ph, thats why im using it. Without adding gh kh mineral , my ph is 5.5. Once i add the gh kh and gh mineral mixture, my ph goes to 6.5. The substrate thing really has my mind turning. Nothing in my tank changed other then the substrate. But forget the tank for a second. Ro water mixed with gh mineral is about 5.5 and that is whats meant to be used with active substrates. And active substrates like amazonia and fluval are supposed to give you a ph of 6.5. So doesnt this mean they are raising the ph? You yoursellf said your ro water has a ph of 5.5 and im sure your crystal red tanks ph is higher then that, right? If they were to lower ph , then everyones crystal tank would be like 5ph, do you know what i mean?

thanks for the reply, I guess im worried because everyone say do not use any kh when it comes to crystal red shrimp. Im also worried that i might be getting ph swings when im not recording because i dont have buffering substrate or enough kh. I only have 1kh. The Ph of ro water after it sits is about 5.5 and it goes up to 6 depending on the ratio of gk and kh i use. Ive found that 50 tds worth of salty shrimp gh kh mineral and 70 tds worth of gh mineral givs me an tds of 120 , kh of 1, gh of 5, and a ph of 6.5 which should be ideal for crystal red, dont you think? When it comes to active substrate, fluval stratum to be exact. For instance , ro water mixed with gh mineral only is 5.5 like we both pointed out. When the fluval stratum keeps the ph at 6.2 , doesnt that mean it is raising the ph? When i removed the stratum, my ph dropped down to ro water ph and went back up when i added kh gh mineral. This could only mean the active substrate raises or lowers ph , depending on what it needs to do to get to 6.2. right?

Fulvic grain is not a substitute for active soil. You normally use fulvic grains as a supplement to active soil. It also doesn't buffer the water, in fact, it would probably lower pH if anything. You would also need to use a lot of fulvic grain, which is very expensive compared to a 25L bag of active substrate. Fulvic grains also don't last very long. They will get exhausted within a couple of months. Which means adding more, and costing more. And ... you said with exhausted substrate, your pH is dropping. So adding more fulvic grains will only help in reducing pH even more. What you need is a small handful of crushed corals to keep pH balanced. When was the last time you cleaned your filter media? pH dropping that dramatically can only mean that your filter is very old. When beneficial bacteria convert ammonia to nitrite & nitrate, they increase Hydrogen in the water (a byproduct of ammonia conversion), which results in low pH. Cleaning your filter in a bucket of old tank water will reduce the beneficial bacteria count just a little. Thereby reducing the drastic drop in pH. How old is your substrate? Maybe it is not exhausted, and it's just the filter being uncleaned for a long time.

Hi Jay, thanks for the reply. I use sponge filters and clean them once a month. My ph was fine when i had active substrate. It was when i removed my active substrate that my ph started to drop. I have regular gravel now and my ph is stable a 6.2 because i keep 1kh in my tank. Do you think i should add crushed coral as well as kh? I dont want to increase my ph. Will the coral atleast keep it more stable? What i get confused about is that my ph dropped to 5 when i removed the fluval stratum. This means that the active substrate was increasing my ph from 5 to 6.2. Does this make sense? I thought active substrate lowers ph. I am using ro water with bee shrimp gh. What i understand is, active substrate will lower tap water or water with kh and it will increase and stabilize ro water or water with no kh. Does this seem accurate ?

Hi guys, So my substrate in my crystal red tank got exhausted and i switched to regular substrate because i got tired of changing the active substrate. I use ro water with salty shrimp gh. My ph dropped down to 5 ph because of no kh or substrate to buffer the water. I ended up mixing salty shrimp gh kh with salty shrimp gh to achieve a kh of 1 and gh of 5 with a tds of 120 which seems to be the perfect amount to keep my ph at 6.2 without an active substrate. Corner tank guy from youtube recommended fulvic grain to me. Can i use fulvic grain instead of active substrate ? If i go back to using just bee shrimp mineral gh with ro water and use fulvic grain, will it buffer my water to crystal red parameters? Its a 10 gallon tank. Usually when peoples active substrate gets exhausted , there ph rises, but for me , when i removed my active substrate, my ph lowerd to 5 from 6.2 . What do you guys think? If it does the job, i would much rather change fulvic grain twice a year vs changing active substrate once a year.