Water softener bad?

[Millerman]

Do you think I could diy or probably just get a plumber?


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[Fishfur]

Only you can answer that. How confident a DIY type are you ? Do you have the tools ? Look it up online, there are tons of sites that will tell you the basics, then you might be able to decide if it's within your abilities or not. It's not something you want to mess up, for sure, but with today's plastic pipe & pipe glue at least you may not need to do any soldering. If soldering has to be done, might want to get a plumber.

 

[trennamw]

Diana Walstad's book suggests using Epsom salt and calcium chloride to raise GH. The calcium chloride you saw on the reef site might be right. Might also be more expensive than getting it elsewhere?

“start with calcium chloride (CaCl2), which is sold as a winter “de-icer”. It dissolves quickly, doesn’t contain sulfates, and won’t increase the pH. A level tablespoon dissolved in one cup water is a reasonable working Ca solution. This Ca solution diluted 1:500 in distilled water gave me a GH of 4. One tsp (teaspoon) added to one gal is about a 1:800 dilution, so I would add a tsp of the Ca solution to each gal of tank water and measure the resulting GH. "

....

“For magnesium, you can use Epsom’s salts, which is MgSO4. A level tsp of Epsom’s salts in 2 cups water is a reasonable working solution. This Mg solution when diluted 1:500 in distilled water gave me a GH of 1 to 2. A reasonable scenario: the tank’s starting GH is about 5 (after the CaCl2 addition) and you boost the GH to 6 or 7 with the Mg solution. I would add just enough of the Mg solution to get a 1-2 GH increase.”

Excerpt From: Diana Louise Walstad. “Ecology of the Planted Aquarium.” Echinodorus. iBooks.
This material may be protected by copyright.

Check out this book on the iBooks Store: https://itunes.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewBook?id=661029773

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[Nathenrauch]

If you do it yourself use Cpvc pipe and Cpvc glue its stronger than pvc or you could go the more expensive route and use pex pipe


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