Seachem Equilibrium 600 g / 1.3 lbs

Works as advertised but slow to dissolve.

I've been in an out of fishkeeping over the years with varied success. My goal this time around was to maintain a heavily planted community aquarium favoring Amazon river fish species predominately. I decided to set up my 75 gallon tank with the plants first to see how they'd fair before stocking it with fish, since that's where I've been the most challenged in the past. Water comes out of the tap on the harder side here at 9 GH, 12 KH and 7.6+ PH. Figuring that was part of my problem in the past, I bought a reverse osmosis unit and figured I'd mix the R/O water with my tap water to soften it. I wasn't arriving at the KH and PH values I wanted without making the GH value too low (1.5) apparently in the tap water/R/O mix. This low GH value seemed to work out fine for my plants ranging from hair grass, banana plants, red amazon swords and a variety of others and for the Amazon river fish species I purchased on the net shipped from afar. But the fish I purchased locally showed signs of osmotic stress within a day or two and a few of them died despite my efforts to acclimate them properly to my much softer water parameters. I realized I needed to raise my GH value without affecting my KH and PH values if the fish purchased locally were to have a better chance of survival. Adding Equalibrium to my R/O water in combination with Acid and Alkaline buffers in the appropriate portions achieved the water parameters and stability I had been trying to achieve with the tap water mix alone prior. I settled upon using Equilibrium to raise my GH after a fair amount of research reviewing the various products available for accomplishing this. The label claims it doesn't use sodium chloride as one of the ingredients which is why I went with Equilibrium instead of others. I'll likely stick with it based upon how it's been working out for me thus far.

One of the top 3 conditioners you need for your planted aquariums its amazing stuff!

Great product! I use this for my 10 gallon shrimp tank that I fill with distilled water. Gets the parameters exactly the way I want them! The instructions were easy to follow, just be sure to read them carefully. I have been using this for two months now with no issues. The only down side is it can cloud your water for a few hours and can be difficult to mix, however this is the nature of the process. It would be difficult to add minerals to water without this side effect. I make the process easier by first mixing the required amount as much as possible in a separate glass, then adding it to the new water.

Worked great in raising the GH of my new tank from 40ppm to around 110 ppm, exactly where I need it for when I add shrimp! I like how I can control exactly how much the water hardness changes in contrast to other products like crushed coral or wondershell which not only takes a longer time to release but is more unpredictable. It did leave some chunks in my aquarium but that was my fault as I did not dissolve it in enough water prior to adding it to the tank, and it did make my water cloudy, but within the hour it's mostly gone away. It had no effect on the PH or KH, which stayed exactly the same before and after adding. It will definitely last me a long time which is great for how relatively affordable it was, great value for money. The stuff is also great for plant health, not just changing water parameters as plants need minerals.

The product works really well and greatly improved the quality and health of the water and my live plants. In turn, happy fish, happy me.

*** Update 07/13/117 *** Back for more. *** Original review *** We have had an aquarium in our house for almost 25 years, ranging from 20 gallons to 110 gallons, and have had both fresh and saltwater setups. About 15 years ago we purchased our first Boesemani Rainbow and got hooked on this type of fish! Brilliant coloration from freshwater fish; now we have Boesemani, Turquoise, Banded, Red, and Praecox (neon) rainbows that have grown to about three inches in length. Our current tank is a 72 gallon bow-front which we fill with RO'd tap water. It has a bio-ball based biological filtration system and also a pond pump that runs water through a UV light canister to manage algae. About 2 years ago we moved into a new-to-us house, and within a couple month started to experience an oddity with the tank... no matter how much sodium bicarbonate we gently mixed in, we could not get the PH testing kit to read much above 6... and then we started to lose fish. Local aquarium staff were very nice to talk to, and they suggested that our issue was our tap water; they said that our county tap water has 0.5 - 1.0 dGH (General Hardness of about 17 ppm) and that rainbows like 10 - 15+ dGH (180+ ppm). They also noted that the RO process can also drive down GH, and that super low GH levels (or, conversely, super high GH) can cause false PH testing results. They recommended that we immediately cycle out 30% of our water and use Equilibrium to focus on getting GH up. I use a 5 gallon pail to do water changes, and the RO water pours into the pail as produced. We put the equilibrium into the pail with the new RO water, and stir aggressively with a long wooden spoon until fairly well mixed in. We cycled 30% of the water each week until the Equilibrium stabilized GH at around 200 ppm and PH settled in at about 7. As GH came up to around 100 ppm, the PH test results jumped to 8... so those good folks at the aquarium were right on!! Now we have gone back to normal water cycling and using a little bit of Equilibrium to maintain balance. For the last 20 months our rainbows have been quite happy and their colors outstanding once again. We even had a surprise birth... what looks like the fry from the turquoise and banded rainbows. We caught one in time to keep him from becoming breakfast, and kept him in a pen for about three months. Now he is about 1.5 inches long and has been released to live with the others. Truly amazing. Guess we must have lived in places where tap water had medium hardness as we had never run into this issue and had never tested tanks for GH before. Glad we know what to do now. Seachem Equilibrium is our friend. If you have a similar need, we highly recommend it.

Seachem is a long trusted company in the aquarium hobby and most of their products are top tier, this is one of them. If you have extremely soft water or use RO or RODI water for your water changes, this product is highly recommend for remineralizing your water.

Does what is suposed to

Used to use replenish for my axolotl tank, started using this as I was having issues with my axolotl having her gills melting away with all parameters perfect. Now I use this I haven't looked back! My axolotl has healed up really well since I switched to this. Absolute essential for low GH areas.

Perfetto

Excellent produit. On utilise de l’eau osmosé (osmose inversée) pour notre Aquarium 90 gallons. Ce produit permet justement d’enrichir cet eau en y ajoutant les minéraux nécessaires à la santé des poissons. Il est suggéré de diluer le produit dans 1 litre d’eau et de verser ensuite le tout dans l’aquarium. Même dilué dans 1 litre d’eau, vous verrez que ce litre d’eau deviendra très opaque (comme du lait). Quand ont verse le tout dans l’aquarium, l’eau devient embrouillée mais heureusement, l’eau reviendra complètement à la normale dans l’heure qui suit ou en moins de temps. Produit identique à la description et aux photos. Très satisfait.

Worst product I've used to raise GH , leaves water cloudy and small white particles in the tank for awhile , plenty of other products that do the job without these issues , do not buy