hard water woes

[jacktheknife]

i have hard water that is causing my ph to bounce back. does anyone think letting my tap water sit for a day and letting the mineral settle to the bottom will help?

 

[BrianNY]

Test the KH and GH. We need more info to give you a meaningful answer

 

[poikilotherm]

In addition to KH and GH, we'll also need to know what the pH is, whether you are trying to adjust it, and if so, what you are using to do this adjustment.

Minerals will generally not just settle to the bottom, because the ions that cause water hardness stay in solution, and will not precipitate under normal conditions.

Aquarium Pharmaceuticals does make a water softening pillow that replaces calcium and other ions that cause hardness for sodium (salt) that doesn't. It is better to get to the bottom of the situation rather than just blindly treat your water. Perhaps if you mix tap water and RO water you can reduce the hardness. Some carbonate hardness (KH) in your water is useful to stabilize your pH.

Good luck!

 

[jacktheknife]

20 gh
12 kh
8-9 ph

i am using doc wellfish's ph down to lower the ph
i can get it down to about 7.5, then it rebounds

 

[jacktheknife]

i've heard that rain water is helpful... what about melted snow??

i can not do reverse osmosis as i do not feel like driving sixty miles for it...

 

[BrianNY]

As you've discovered jacktheknife, part of the problem with products that alter pH is that they are temporary fixes. Plus, with a KH of 12 you have so much buffering capacity that the tank will rebound very quickly. It is very stressful for fish to have the pH bouncing all over the place.

Like poikilotherm says, there are water softening pillows which can be placed in your filter to soften the water some. I'm not really sure how well they will work on water as hard as yours, and in order to control the pH you have to correct the hardness.

The simplest and least expensive thing IMO would be to keep species that prefer hard water such as African Cichlids or most of the live bearers. However there is no reason why you couldn't keep the soft water fish, you're just going to have to invest a little time any money.

I wouldn't drive 60 miles every time I needed RO water either. Nor would I bother collecting rain water or snow melt. What I would do is purchase a small RO unit and make my own perfect water. A much better solution in the long run

 

[jacktheknife]

actually, collecting rain water is quite simple for me, as my house is set up for a systern, i can just place a rain barrel bellow that. but this is iowa and it probably wont rain for another 3-4 months... so do you think the snow would work? time i have, money i dont

 

[hashbaz]

You can buy RO+DI on ebay for $100 or less - if you are patient. This is probably the best way to lower your hardness. This is what I did. But now I wish I had just bought fish to match my water like BNY suggested.

Snow and/or rainwater might work - but I would wonder about pollution. We have quite a bit of pollution here and the rain and snow always take it out of the air and into the streams. It might not be enough to worry about tho.

 

[millipede]

I don't know if it affects hardness or not, but someone might want to test this... it would take a bit of testing though... Anyone with hard water knows that it leaves minerals behind everywhere it goes, so there would have to be some way to seperate them... I've noticed that with even a super clean ice cube tray, if i let ice disolve in a glass of water that I end up with things floating around. I talked to this water guy(ecowaters) about it and he said that was the hard water and the minerals or whatever got seperated when the water froze... I imagine if this was true and my theory actually had any impact it would probably still take several freezes and thaws to significant'y lower the hardness, though someday if I've ever bored(yeah right) I might just do some testing before and after sort of thing...

 

[BrianNY]

OK, I hear ya on the lack of money woes too. Before we try reinventing the wheel here, what species are you wanting to keep?

 

[chrism]

what about boiling? I've got hard water, and we go through a few kettles a year due to limescale build up etc...?

 

[jacktheknife]

this is a multi tank problem, of course

i am keeping swordtails, goldfish, neons, a cory cat, a black molly, and a snail.... i want to add a new substrate and convert to planted tanks and that is why i have the sudden fuss over my water conditions.

i can try boiling, although it doesnt seem that feesable... or maybe it does. i suppose i would only have to boil about half of the water for my bi weekly changes. i will give that a try tomorrow on my day off

i have been told that the water softening pillow can be quite hazordous to fish, especially skinned fish, like cats. is this true?

 

[chrism]

yea i mean im guessing here, but it sounds kinda feasible... maybe test some straight outa the tap, boil ti, then test again?

 

[poikilotherm]

I like BrianNY's comment that if you have hard water, get hard-water fish. That said, if you want to lower KH and GH without dropping cash on RO, here are a few things to think about. You can lower KH by boiling the water, but it is possibly not practical because of electric/gas bills. Boiling releases the carbonic acid as CO2 to the atmosphere, and leaves some calcium scale behind, but does not greatly affect GH.

Putting peat in the filter, or driftwood in your tank is a nice natural way to lower hardness and pH, but some don't like the slight brownish color imparted to your water. I like having a bit of peat or driftwood- the humic acids and tannins are good for many fish and plants. Boil the peat or driftwood before putting it in your filter or tank. It also acts as a reminder to do water changes, when the water gets browner than you like it!

The water softening pillow increases the salt content of the water proportionally to how much hardness it removes. Scaleless fish are more sensitive to salt in the water, so the pillow is probably not a good way to go when you're trying to remove this much hardness.

 

[jacktheknife]

the driftwood and peat method may also be worth a shot. would a lfs sell peat or do i need to go to a nursey or someplace else?

none of my fish seem to mind the hard water, but as i stated in my last post i would like to begin growing aquarium plants again and most plant are not tolerant of the high ph level.

 

[BrianNY]

Ahhh. You're worrying yourself over nothing. Plants are more tolerant of shifting pH and hardness conditions than fish. Depending on the plants you choose to grow, light and CO2 are much more of a determining factor. There's a wide array of plants that be grown in low light conditions with your tap water.

HTH

 

[jacktheknife]

in that case i wont worry about it much. i'll use the rainwater in the spring just for fun and i might add some driftwood as well. the fish will enjoy playing on it if nothing else.

thanks for your help!

 

[jacktheknife]

i finally got around to boiling the water. if you remember my gh was 20 and kh was 12. my ph would stay between 8 and 9 due to all the buffers in the water.

after boiling, the gh droped to 10 or 11, and the kh to 6. it basically cut my water hardness in half. i added ph decreaser and lowered the ph to 6.5 and left it to sit overnight. this morning i check my attributes again and everything had remained steady- no ph rebound. i think i'm going to be boiling a lot of water in the future....

 

[Guest]

While we're on the topic and for my own personal knowledge, what is the fishkeepers' stance on standard whole-house water softeners and the water that comes from it? Is the residual sodium found in softened water bad for fish? Is there really that much sodium in it anyway?

 

[jacktheknife]

from what i've read, that is bad for most fish, especially scaleless. when the water is soften using salt, all the hard water thingies are replaced with sodium-- that harder the water the more sodium. as hard as my water is that is definently not an option