Tropical Fish Forums

Sand · Regulars Joined: 04 May 2004 Location: Florida U.S.A,

I found a decent product. "R.O. Right"

or I just unplug the water softener so it doesn't regenerate, after a week the water is hard and I use THAT water Smile

heh heh

djchristone · Regulars Joined: 07 Mar 2006

eh artificial chemicals like that are kinda blah Razz

there are natural methods too yanno Razz

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MY FISH IS BETTER THAN YOUR FISH!!!!! Twisted Evil

unissuh

Your water softner isn't really lowering hardness from the point of view of your fish. I suggest you use a water source without the water softner attached.

McP · Advisors Joined: 24 Jul 2004

Jose · Regulars Joined: 27 Oct 2005 Location: Australia

All the salts which RO right put back in the water occur naturally in water.

Water softeners use ion exchange resins where they replace Calcium and Magnesium with Sodium ions. Id say that the hard water would be better for your fish.

azadean · Members Joined: 23 Feb 2005 Location: Perth, Australia

Up until recently I have not been testing my tank for GH and KH, mainly because I didn't have a test kit. Well now I do and the latest test I have done is as follows:

pH = 7.0
GH = 60ppm
KH = 40ppm

The tank has been running over a year, I have always done regular water changes, the tank is a medium density planted tank of about 260 litres.

I tested my tap water I use for water changes today and the results were almost the same except pH was 7.2.

My question is due to much reading I have done recently regarding KH and how it assists stabilisation of pH. If I am right it appears a KH of 40ppm is quite low and would be prone to pH fluctuations.

Should I try to increase my KH, to be honest until very recently I havent really been monitoring my pH too carefully (only ammonia, nitrites and nitrates) so do not know how much the pH has been fluctuating.

I hope this is enough info.Thanks in advance.

Marcos Avila

If your tank has been running for a year now and the pH is at 7.0 then I don't think you have much to worry about. It means that your maintenance and water change routine is taking care of replenishing enough buffers in the tank water.

Trying to raise your KH will usually result in a pH raise as well...whether that's good for you or not depends on which species you keep. If you're happy with the pH around 7.0, just keep monitoring it weekly and if it drops below 6.6 or so you can compensate and increase KH by adding a little bit of baking soda.
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Success with a fish/tank is measured in YEARS, not months or weeks...

switchcats · Members Joined: 22 Apr 2004 Location: Ontario, Canada

Hi All,

I just lost most of my school of praecox and celebes because of what the LFS said was an extreme reaction to the difference in the hardness between their tank water and my water. Theirs tests at over 700ppm total hardness, and mine is about 50. Water in my area is really hard, and the store doesn't mess with it.

Reason for the difference is because there is a softener in my house, that reduces the hardness to almost 0 ppm. And the guy said that not much will live in my tanks. But I have fish that are two years old and have had no problems, this has been the only incident of a mass die-off.

I can only get cold hard water out of my plumbing, but I can't put that into the tanks at water change time because the temp shock would be too much. And I think that the sudden upward swing in hardness would probably upset them too.

What should I do?

Thanks for your help.
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EdibertsB · New Members Joined: 08 Apr 2006

I use bottled water. I add Stress Coat to it. Someone on this forum also mentioned to me revese osmosis water that is used by some stores that will refill your bottles.

I was also told not to use softened water as frequently salts that contain residuals are sed to do the softening and might be harmful.