Water Hardness

[Garry6334]

Is there a way to reduce water hardness
My tank has been filled and declorinated, the water temp is rising (72). My test strip tells me all other chemicals are balanced except for water hardness.
I haven’t put any fish in yet.

 

[eatyourpeas]

What are your parameters? Tank dimensions? Filter, heater, etc.? What kind of fish are you looking at stocking?
And welcome to the forum!

 

[Garry6334]

Thanks eat your peas The tank is 40 gallon and I am going to eventually stock tetras. The heater is 200w submersible, the filter is ??? New and recommended for this size tank. I have to air stones.

 

[eatyourpeas]

I am not a Tetra expert, but the Orinoco and Rio Negro biotopes are acidic and you can accomplish that by adding tannins (wood and leaves). @WhistlingBadger @Colin_T or any of the mods can help with that. You have to make sure your pH and parameters in general are amenable to the species you want to keep.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

How hard is your current water? There are ways to soften water, but if your water is very hard you might have to use purified water. Bottled water obviously can get very expensive. R/O might be a cheaper option in the long run. Let us know how hard your water is and we can go from there.

 

[Colin_T]

The GH (general hardness), KH (carbonate hardness) and pH of your water supply can usually be obtained from your water supply company's website or by telephoning them. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to the local pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).

Depending on what the GH of your water is, will determine what fish you should keep.
Tetras, barbs, gouramis, rasbora, Corydoras and small species of suckermouth catfish all occur in soft water (GH below 150ppm).

Livebearers (guppies, platies, swordtails, mollies) occur in medium hard water with a GH around 200-250ppm.

If you have very hard water (GH above 300ppm) then look at African Rift Lake cichlids or use distilled or reverse osmosis water to reduce the GH and keep fishes from softer water.

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If you have hard water, you can dilute it with reverse osmosis (r/o), distilled or rain water (assuming the rain is clean).

 

[Garry6334]

How hard is your current water? There are ways to soften water, but if your water is very hard you might have to use purified water. Bottled water obviously can get very expensive. R/O might be a cheaper option in the long run. Let us know how hard your water is and we can go from there.

Current flow is steady, not necessarily fast. The GH according to dipstick is between 150-250. I have used AquPlus treatment for removal of chlorine.

 

[Garry6334]

Current flow is steady, not necessarily fast. The GH according to dipstick is between 150-250. I have used AquPlus treatment for removal of chlorine.

Also tank is 3 days old start. No fish or plants.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

OK, that's pretty hard water, sure enough. If it were me, I would either fork out the money to install an R/O system on the nearest faucet (tell the plumber you're using it for an aquarium; they can put in a bigger-than-standard tank and maybe even a threaded faucet, which will hugely help with water changes), or ditch the soft-water species and go for livebearers, cichlids, or rainbow fish.

 

[Garry6334]

Thanks WB. I think i will consider different species.

 

[WhistlingBadger]

You could do a really cool Mexico/central America tank with livebearers, firemouths, lots of other possibilities...

 

[Retired Viking]

I keep tetras in my 55 gallon tank and have hard water. I use RO to soften my water. I use a hardness test pen to test the water so I get the right hardness. The test pens are around 10 USD. I currently buy my water from a local water dealer who has a RO water filling machine. I bought 4-5 gallon jugs and refills is .29 cents a gallon. I am looking at buying a RO system. You have a colorful tank.