Thinking About Adding Cardinals - Opinions Welcome

[FlyingFish78]

As you can see in my sig' I already have a good variety of fish in the aquarium but it would be nice to get some reddish fish to compliment the other colours in the tank. After giving it some careful consideration the fish I'd most like to add are Cardinal Tetras.
 
Unfortunately the water is extremely hard; giving a maximum reading of both GH and KH. Not only that but the PH is relatively high at around 7.8. It was 8.1 until it was softened by some bogwood.
 
I'd just like your opinions as to whether it would be feasible to add Cardinal Tetras to the tank?
 

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Also, the nitrite reading has only been zero for 2 days now. Would it be safe to add them tomorrow, or best to wait a while first just in case? Basically it took weeks for the ammonia to settle down to zero and this was immediately followed by a massive nitrite spike a week ago. I was basically doing water changes of 25-30% every single evening just to keep the reading at around 0.125ppm. I took the measure of adding some API Quick Start (Good bacteria) and the nitrite reading settled to absolute zero 2 days ago. I tested again today and it's still zero. OK to add the fish yet?
 
Thanks in advance for your opinions and advice.

 

[hobby5]

With those water parameters my advice would be no to cardinals. Sorry. They might look happy the first time but they never will live up to there full potential and reach their life expectancy of > 8 years. Also your lemon tetra would prefer softer water. I would be looking for some hard water fish. If you want red. Platies would be a good choice.

 

[FlyingFish78]

With those water parameters my advice would be no to cardinals. Sorry. They might look happy the first time but they never will live up to there full potential and reach there life expectancy of > 8 years. Also your lemon tetra would prefer softer water. I would be looking for some hard water fish. If you want red. Platies would be a good choice.

 
Thanks for the reply.
 
I forgot to mention that I plan on softening the water in the future. It won't be that hard forever.

 

[looking-glass]

have you not tried using an acid buffer to bring the PH down

http/www.charterhouse-aquatics.co.uk/image.php?src=images/seachem/AcidBuffer70g.jpg&width=450&height=450
 
 
 
something like this

 

[FlyingFish78]

have you not tried using an acid buffer to bring the PH down
http/www.charterhouse-aquatics.co.uk/image.php?src=images/seachem/AcidBuffer70g.jpg&width=450&height=450
 
 
 
something like this

TBH I'm more concerned about the water hardness and whether the Tetras will survive.