can anyone recommend a water softener?

[frand]

All my water readings are good (nitrate/nitrite/amonia 0, Ph 7, ) but my water hardness is very hard, and although all my fish are fine at the moment, Its not ideal so I would like to soften it.

Can anyone recommend a good brand to treat the water. I dont have the money to buy a reverse osmosis filter, and dont want to try the boiling water option!

thank you

 

[bs6749]

What level of GH do you have currently? I've kept fish successfully in water with a GH of well over 300 ppm and they bred in that stuff and they produced fry. This was with discus, rams, and angelfish, which are native to soft water. Tank raised fish are far more tolerant of abnormal conditions than wild ones are.

The only method I would recommend is adding pure water in place of tap water to get the GH you are looking for. This water can be distilled, reverse osmosis, etc.

 

[frand]

thankyou, thats interesting that even discus could tolerate the water levels.

Ive just re-tested my water, and confused myself. My Kh reading is 100, indicating soft to medium water, but my Gh (general hardness ) mg/l is 500, very top end of the scale.

can nyone explain these readings to me??

 

[bs6749]

KH is about carbonate/bicarbonate levels and measures the ability to resist pH swings. That level is pretty good...probably about average or just below average.

As for GH, the "softness/hardness" in water comes from calcium and magnesium ions primarily. 500 ppm is very high and you might need to use half tap water and half pure water and then add some backing soda to keep your KH up, since you'd be cutting it in half (down to 50 ppm) with a 1:1 mixture of tap and pure water.

 

[frand]

thankyou for explaining that. so i need to buy purified water and add to my tap water to lower the hardness. Is that the best way to do it?

 

[BrackAttack]

that could get expensive over time. you might want to buy a RO/DI system.

 

[frand]

right off to google...............
thankyou for your help