reducing water hardness

[Phase2]

Hi all,

Has anyone come up with a cheap and cheerful solution in reducing water hardness as here it is off the scale......I know about using distilled/deionised water but is there a better way?......your thoughts please....


thanks

 

[joshua]

using peat moss in your filter. if im not wrong u can also use dried oak leaves but not all leaves can be used.

 

[Phase2]

I can see by the lack of response that this is a difficult one......I may have to find a solution myself.....

 

[A.K.A Zak]

using peat moss in your filter.

i would agree with this, or just use distilled water.

 

[Bol]

I've heard many people mention peat (which can be easily found at any garden center). One thing to mention about peat, though, ... I haven't used it, but many people say it may give your water a touch of yellow/brown color.

 

[joshua]

color is jsut a cosmetic thing, like when u add driftwood u may stain the water a tea-color. no harm i should think. but u may have to be careful with peat from gardening shops... not too sure if they are the same as the ones in LFS, if they are, sorry then

 

[Eelzor]

Are you trying to make the water hard? If you are, people here have already explained well about how to do it. If you want to make it soft it is a very difficult thing to do and really should be done at the start. boiled or specially treated water can be added to soften it up.

 

[Phase2]

Than ks for the replies.....making water softer is a real problem I can see......Distilled water is a solution but this removes minerals that I am not sure if the fish need or not?......hmmm

 

[cheese_mcphee]

Just out of curiosity, why do you want to reduce the water hardness? I live in very hard water area and also wanted to reduce it, I did this by filtering the water and/or boiling it then adding it. Takes a very long time though!

As water changes were taking so long, I asked various LFS's around me if they had anything to reduce the hardness. You can get a water softener pillow, but they all told me it wasn't worth trying to reduce the water hardness. This is because anyone selling fish around you will have the same tap water, and therefore the fish have already got used to it, and having noticeable softer water could even cause problems for them.

 

[mrV]

Are you now talking about KH or GH?

 

[Lateral Line]

I've tried numerous techniques for reducing the hardness and minerals in the tap water where I lived - it was obscenely hard. In the end, I bought my own reverse osmosis filter - it was the only reliable economic solution. I also used rainwater but you do have to watch that for pollution - depends where you live - and which way the wind is blowing.