WATER HARDNESS

[Donya]

My test kit arrive today (API) to test my water for KH & GH.

My KH is 6 which I understand is 106.8 ppm. However, I was totally shocked at my GH levels.

23 drops later and if i am doing it right is 409.4 ppm.

Just to add a bit of accuracy data on the API GH side of this discussion, I just got a fresh set of those two kits. When using RODI water + Remineralize in a bucket, the GH seems to like to go from nothing to 15 or more as I increase the hardness of the water, and I'm having a really hard time getting readings inbetween. Also on a sample of water that was reading extremely high at 40dGH (a reading that was already improbable but the color change did stick solidly...), doing a 50% mixture of that water with fresh RODI wit TDS of 0 did not give me around 20dGH as I expected but instead gave me more like 35. So...I'm not thrilled with the performance of the API GH kit although I don't know why it would be problematic (settled or unevenly mixing of the reagent in the bottle maybe?? I don't know what the reagent is so no idea if that could happen). The KH one seems fine on prepared mixtures of RODI and baking soda and reads pretty close to expected.

 

[gwand]

Im not a scientist...


...ooh! Look!

I agree with you Captain. The few cognoscenti on this forum that I have the utmost respect for seem to agree that the degree of hardness has an impact on the overall health and wellbeing of many fish species. There are hard water fish whose renal system are adapted to high concentration of cations and there are species with a renal system that are injured by high cation concentrations. Finally there are species that have more flexible kidneys and can adapt to a wide range of cation concentrations. I am a cautious aquarist and take hardness into account when selecting fish.

 

[plebian]

You do you, matey

By all means. I'm sure you will continue to simply ignore any facts that conflict with your world view. It's a very human thing to do.