Hobby Humin Superaktiv Aquarium Water Conditioner - 1200ml

Hobby Humin Superaktiv Aquarium Water Conditioner - 1200ml is a humic-acid filter granulate - the engineered version of what a tank full of leaves does. It goes in the filter rather than in the tank, and it softens the water and lowers pH for soft-water fish.

Key Features

• 1200ml of granulate, which is a lot - this is a filter-sized dose, not a bottle of liquid.
• Humic Acids: the active part. They bind hardness and release the tannins that acidify and tint the water.
• Goes In The Filter: Hobby recommend putting it in a mesh filter bag, which we list separately, so you can lift it out in one piece.
• For Soft-Water Species: discus, apistogramma, chocolate gourami, wild bettas, most tetras - the fish that colour up and breed in blackwater and sulk in hard tap water.

Hobby Also Claim Trace Elements And Plant Hormones

• We would not buy it for those. Humic substances do carry trace elements and do interact with plant growth, but they are not a fertiliser and they are not plant hormones in any meaningful sense. Buy this to soften and acidify water; if you want to feed plants, buy a plant fertiliser.
• What it will reliably do is drop pH and hardness and tint the water. That is worth having if your fish need it.

Using It Here

• UAE tap water is hard and well buffered. That buffering resists pH change, so you may need more of this than a European keeper would - or an RO unit, which is the real answer for soft-water species in this region.
• Change water chemistry slowly. Fish cope far better with steady-but-imperfect water than with numbers that swing about. Move pH and hardness gradually and test as you go rather than dosing to a target.
• Watch the pH for the first fortnight. A strongly acidifying medium in a tank whose buffering has been exhausted can drop pH suddenly. Test twice a week at first.
• It exhausts. Expect to replace it every couple of months; the effect fades quietly rather than stopping.

Good To Know

• This listing is the 1200ml pack.
• Use it in a mesh bag. Loose granulate in a filter is how you block an impeller.
• It will tint the water brown. That is normal.
• Do not run it alongside activated carbon - the carbon removes exactly what this adds.