Water Hardness - Why is mine so high?

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JoeNut

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Oct 7, 2016
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So i have noticed a while back that my water hardness is extremely high, like the darkest blue possible on an API test strip. I'd never really thought about it before as my prime concern being a "Newby" is to keep the Nitrite at 0 - Nitrates low and the PH stable.

However i am now wondering why on earth my GH is somewhere round the 180 mark. i tested the tap water last night and it's at about 30, so something in my tank is making it extremely hard.

My initial thoughts were the couple of stones/rocks in the tank, so i removed them last night. if that fails then i am guessing it could only be the gravel substrate. Am i likely to see a rapid decline in GH removing the stones, if they are the issue?

Am i missing something? could my filter need media changing or something along those lines? i haven't changed the carbon pads or foam in the filter since i got the tank (january) but they have been cleaned from time to time.

Any feedback would be helpful. :thanks:
 
It was probably the rocks. If you bought the gravel packaged as aquarium gravel it will be fine. The filter doesn't do anything about the hardness. You need yo be careful if you have fish in there not to upset the chemistry too badly. Remove the different rocks at a time to see if they were the culprit. You need to do water changes to figure this out too.
 
Thank you, presumably the hardness will stay the same until the existing water is changed with new lower GH water from the tap.

I do 20% weekly so this should lower over time i guess.

I'll see what happens, and hope it does actually affect it.
 
place the rocks u removed in some treated tap water(what ever you use for WC) into individual small containers let them soak for a week & test each,toss out the high PH ones & put the others back in if you liked those rocks.

Rocks from creeks etc should be heated/boiled to disinfect before use.
a pot on the BBQ works fine.
dont boil as Hard as it will go,20-30 mins of a nice simmer is fine,remove from heat & place rock some place it will cool slowly.
 
Since we don't know what all you have in the tank as decorations, this is going to be a blanket statement. Anything made of calcium carbonate will make the water hard. This includes rocks, limestone, anything from the sea (corals and shells), crushed coral gravel, african cichlid mix gravel or any decor or supplement that may contain magnesium. All these things will cause either your general hardness ( GH) or carbonate hardness ( KH) to rise. Do any of these sound like they are in your tank?
You are correct that just removing the "offender" will not reduce the hardness quickly and that your weekly water changes will do it faster. (y)
 
THank you for the replies, goldguru that's an excellent idea about the seperate containers. i'll do that.
 
One way to reduce hardness would be to add a piece of driftwood to your tank. Don't boil the tannins out as that is what will make the water softer. This might cause an uphill battle, though, as anytime you to water changes you'll be adding that hard water back. Eventually the driftwood won't have any tannins left to leech out.

But I agree that it's likely something that was added to the tank. Some gravels increase hardness quite a bit. Water changes and replacing the water you take out with distilled/reverse osmosis water or a mix of tap water with distilled/RO water will correct this. This should be done very slowly if you have fish, though, as you may have large swings in your hardness and your pH.
 
Thank you nick, i have some driftwood in already, i've taken the rocks out and will do around 25% weekly (first one done this weekend) hopefully that should reduce the GH over time
 
Do you have a well? Ground water is often very hard compared to municipal water.
test the tap water so see if it is really your rocks or just your source water.
 
Hi Jarrod, no the water is straight from the tap and measures only 30gh rather than the tank waters sky high stuff - i wonder if this is the reason my 3 lined cory's died off :(

All other fish seem unaffected which is strange considering they should be in soft water - however who knows what this is doing to them
 
I had bought "inert" aquarium gravel years back and it was making my water rock hard. Pulled it all out and now I use glass jelly beans. I can control my water parameters much better and it's pretty. Total chick tank.


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Hi Jarrod, no the water is straight from the tap and measures only 30gh rather than the tank waters sky high stuff - i wonder if this is the reason my 3 lined cory's died off :(

All other fish seem unaffected which is strange considering they should be in soft water - however who knows what this is doing to them

GH is 30? Seems a little higher if your using the DKH number. If you mean 30 ppm that is actually kind of low. Fish should be able to deal with 30 ppm just fine.

GH is Calcium and Magnesium but can also be effected if your adding aquarium salt or potassium additives for plants etc. KH is carbonate/bicarbonate. Both can come from the water your adding in and additives you add for plants.
If your not doing many Water changes it is accumulating from the water evaporating out. When you add new water you add more minerals but only the water evaporates. So the minerals accumulate. Feel free to PM me if you wish to really get into it. I have look into this subject quite a lot. I have a very strong grasp on it. I bought some very nice LaMotte test kits to get really good readings for them etc.

EDIT: Just to be sure I went and consulted some references for you. 6-11 drops in order for the GH test to change color is perfectly fine for most tropical fish. that is 100-200 ppm. I would not even worry about it. If your tap is only 30 you could just do a 50% water change to lower it some. Only white colored rocks like calcium carbonate or limestone will make your GH rise and there is a limit. It tops out etc. I did some experiments with that and recorded the results last year. Available upon request.
 
Hi Jarrod thanks for the efforts here, i think maybe you missed in my initial post that the reading in the tank is 180GH, but the tap water is only 30GH - my question was why / how is this increase happening, and what are the effects. I believe it must be the stones.
 
Do you have a well? Ground water is often very hard compared to municipal water.
Actually, that is not true in all cases. It depends on where you live. I'm currently on a well in Central FL and my water is quite soft but with a high PH whereas in South FL, my well water was rock hard with a high PH. Same state + different region= different water. This is why you need to check your water source for what it is for "you" and work with it accordingly. In some cases, certain medications or additives will work in one water condition but not in another which makes it hard to make blanket statements about this or that. ;)

Hi Jarrod, no the water is straight from the tap and measures only 30gh rather than the tank waters sky high stuff - i wonder if this is the reason my 3 lined cory's died off :(

All other fish seem unaffected which is strange considering they should be in soft water - however who knows what this is doing to them
One possible reason is that the "other fish" were not wild caught fish where the cories may have been.
What many don't realize when they are researching fish is that what we have available are mostly tank bred and raised fish and not wild caught. This is important because the information online is for the wild fish. So the water parameters that they were raised in is more important than what their wild cousins live in is. Even further, what the store's water parameters are where one is buying their fish at is more important than what they were raised in (assuming the fish are healthy looking and acting "normal".) So just because a store has fish all together in one system does not mean all the fish are healthy or well adjusted to that water. In some cases, where stores use individual tanks, the water may differ between tanks to accommodate the needs of a particular fish in stock which you, the buyer, should duplicate in order to have the same result the store is having.
Hope this makes sense. (y)
 
Hi Jarrod thanks for the efforts here, i think maybe you missed in my initial post that the reading in the tank is 180GH, but the tap water is only 30GH - my question was why / how is this increase happening, and what are the effects. I believe it must be the stones.

If your numbers are right then it is most likely evaporation. Then you add more water from the tap to make up for the water that evaporated yes?
What color are these rocks you added? White maybe?

It's possible but unlikely when the water is that high already. Water can only dissolve more GH from the rock IF there is room left in the water to take it. So it really takes you 180 drops of GH solution to do the test? 30 Drops for your tap water? That is a very excessive amount. Is that right? If not, you are not reading the chart right ;D

I think if that is the case I would get some distilled water and see what ratio of tap water to distilled water (or use RO water) to get the right GH. Then start doing small water changes with this water a little every day. Don't want to shock the fish. It sounds like your water is very hard from the tap and evaporation is causing it to go even higher. When you top off, use distilled or RO water from now on. That will stop it from getting higher still.
 
in answer to your first question there were 3 different rocks.

Mayybe i am misunderstanding the terms or how it's measured - i'm using a standard dip type test which gives a darker colour the higher the GH - like a litmus paper with different squares indicating different things (GH,KH,PH,Nitrate,Nitrite)

Tap water = 30gh (light blue square)
Tank water = 180gh (dark blue square)

I have also tested seperate containers which held the rocks - all 3 different rocks tested at 30gh (light blue)

At this point i am convinced it is down to the gravel substrate as someone posted earlier, so my next step will be to remove some of the gravel - add it to a container with tapwater and then test the water after a week or so to see if it's hardness has gotten greater. if so then the gravel is the cause, it not - well then hell i haven't a clue.

Thank you all for your replies
 
in answer to your first question there were 3 different rocks.

Mayybe i am misunderstanding the terms or how it's measured - i'm using a standard dip type test which gives a darker colour the higher the GH - like a litmus paper with different squares indicating different things (GH,KH,PH,Nitrate,Nitrite)

Tap water = 30gh (light blue square)
Tank water = 180gh (dark blue square)

I have also tested seperate containers which held the rocks - all 3 different rocks tested at 30gh (light blue)

At this point i am convinced it is down to the gravel substrate as someone posted earlier, so my next step will be to remove some of the gravel - add it to a container with tapwater and then test the water after a week or so to see if it's hardness has gotten greater. if so then the gravel is the cause, it not - well then hell i haven't a clue.

Thank you all for your replies

Aha...Now I understand. Your using the strips not the liquid tests. We did not used to have those :) Your experiment is the perfect thing to do to test your rocks and gravel to see if it is the cause.

I did some experiments on this area. see below
http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f12/gh-and-kh-buffering-experiment-339090.html

http://www.aquariumadvice.com/forums/f12/another-gh-kh-cc-experiment-340204.html

I looked at the chart for you test strips.It is talking about 180 ppm of harness which is only 10 on the scale I am referring too. It is hard but not unusual or bad. Plants would love it. My planted tank is the same way. Nothing to worry about IMO. However...it is the end of the test kits range and it could be way more but we don't know how much more. Based on my tests I linked above, I would not worry. If the fish seem happy they are fine. I know the plants will love all that calcium and magnesium. I added crushed coral to my planted tank to get this effect on purpose :D

Pics here (Old pic now) This tank tested the same GH as you. people add GH to planted tanks to get the level you aleady ahve sometimes ;D
img_3385631_0_a18c37cffacaa5274be53b5a38c80131.jpg
 
AH that explains the confusion there then - gravel looks similar.

Considering all my fish are supposedly soft water fish, i'm concerned this is causing issues i cannot see - i also believe it stops spawning and breeding the tetras is something i'd like to do.

If it is in fact the gravel - i think i'll be considering a substrate change to sand, which in hindsight is something i wish i'd done in the first place as i think it looks better than gravel anyway.

Will see how the gravel tests in a few days. thanks.
 
AH that explains the confusion there then - gravel looks similar.

Considering all my fish are supposedly soft water fish, i'm concerned this is causing issues i cannot see - i also believe it stops spawning and breeding the tetras is something i'd like to do.

If it is in fact the gravel - i think i'll be considering a substrate change to sand, which in hindsight is something i wish i'd done in the first place as i think it looks better than gravel anyway.

Will see how the gravel tests in a few days. thanks.

Most of us have given up the old approach that water needs to be acidic for tropical amazon fish. Even Discuss keepers use alkaline water now. However, it can be a key to trigger breeding. I would consult with a breeder. It should not cause any health issues though. Plants, I'm told, don't do as well in gravel as they do in sand. There are also special sands that provide iron for the plant. Most plants prefer to take up iron at the root and not dosed to the water.
 
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