Brutal GH and 0 KH please help

[ThomasWFB]

Hi,
i have a problem with GH and KH. I have just discovered that my water is completely messed up. I've never had such issues as the water has always been apropriate but in the las 6 weeks i have lost 5 fish, and have always atributed the deaths to other issues because i had run out of GHKH test and i live in Lima and its generally hard to find and pretty expensive, and as i said, the hardness had been good in the past so i didn't think about it. The problem is, i lost another fish yersterday, so i went on a hunt for tests and i got an API test kit. I tested my aquarium water and the tap water and the results came out as follows:
Aquarium:
GH: 17 drops (ppm not even on the chart as it goes to only 12 drops)
KH: 1dKH (17.9ppm)
Tap:
GH: 19 drops (again, ppm not even on the chart)
KH: 1dKH (17.9ppm)
As i said, i've never encountered such a problem so i dont know what to do to lower the GH and if possible raise KH. Please help me.
Thanks in advance and sorry for possible mistakes and typos as english is not my first language.

 

[Andy Sager]

It sounds like your water source has changed it's water source or maybe this is a seasonal thing for them? I would suggest contacting your water company to confirm what happened to change things.

There are ways to lower the hardness of the water without using a saline based matrix but they take time to work. Do you have access to peat moss or a reverse osmosis filter for distilled water? The reverse osmosis water will be faster than the peat moss method. Either way, you will need to have a secondary container to hold the " fixed" water for water changes.

 

[ThomasWFB]

a whole filter

It sounds like your water source has changed it's water source or maybe this is a seasonal thing for them? I would suggest contacting your water company to confirm what happened to change things.

There are ways to lower the hardness of the water without using a saline based matrix but they take time to work. Do you have access to peat moss or a reverse osmosis filter for distilled water? The reverse osmosis water will be faster than the peat moss method. Either way, you will need to have a secondary container to hold the " fixed" water for water changes.

I can get peat moss and a RO filter is way out of my budget right now. I've been doing my research and i want to try and recreate the API softening pillows using nylon bags and food grade cationized resin because if i barely got the tests i dont want to imagine getting the bags, even less the price. What do you reckon? Would it work? What kind of effects would it possibly have on my tank apart from potentially demineralizing it completely?

 

[Andy Sager]

a whole filter

I can get peat moss and a RO filter is way out of my budget right now. I've been doing my research and i want to try and recreate the API softening pillows using nylon bags and food grade cationized resin because if i barely got the tests i dont want to imagine getting the bags, even less the price. What do you reckon? Would it work? What kind of effects would it possibly have on my tank apart from potentially demineralizing it completely?

The issue becomes that if the cationized resin uses salt, you will be adding salt to the tank which the fish may not like. The API water softening pillows use salt to recharge them. If this is an issue for you, using peat might be better. In a container ( use a large container, barrel, vat, fish tank, etc.) place a good amount of the peat in the container and heavily aerate or have a filter circulate the water through the peat. This will help soften the water. You will need to test the water daily to see how long it will take to make the water the hardness level you want it at. Once you arrive at that level, turn off the filter/aeration and remove either the peat or the water to a separate container for future use. This is what we had to do to get our hard Florida water safe for wild caught Discus.
IF you make the water too soft, just mix it with some of the new tap water which will dilute the hardness.
Hope this helps.

 

[Aiken Drum]

Just to reinforce what @Andy Sager has said.

The softening pillow or however you try to do a DIY version with resin, works on an ion exchange principal. It removes the magnesium and calcium that causes general hardness and replaces it with sodium. Overall the level of disolved minerals stays the same, its just a different mineral in the water. High sodium could be just as bad for freshwater fish as high calcium and magnesium. Really depends on the fish. Fish that are tolerant of high GH will be tolerant to high sodium which kind of defeats the purpose of using softened water from a resin system.

If you speak to Brita, who's water filters use the same principal, they will tell you that using softened water that's gone through their filters will probably be alright in aquariums, but their recommendation is to not use their filtered water as there is a risk. Some people get away with it, some people don't. As said some fish species will be more tolerant to sodium (eg fish that suit hard water), and some won't (eg fish that suit soft water). And also if your water is very hard, thats a lot more sodium going into the water than if your water is only moderately hard.

The peat moss method, or diluting down the hard tap water with RO/ distilled is going to reduce both the GH and total disolved solids wothout adding sodium and is the better, safer method. There are resins that use potassium instead of sodium though which is safer for fish.

For info, every one degree of hardness is 17.9ppm. No need to be mega accurate here. Your 1 degree of KH is roughly 18ppm. Your 17 degrees of GH is roughly 300ppm, which puts you in the very hard category.

Have you considered keeping hard water fish and using a KH buffer to raise the KH? That's assuming this is a permanent change in your water supply.

 

[ThomasWFB]

The issue becomes that if the cationized resin uses salt, you will be adding salt to the tank which the fish may not like. The API water softening pillows use salt to recharge them. If this is an issue for you, using peat might be better. In a container ( use a large container, barrel, vat, fish tank, etc.) place a good amount of the peat in the container and heavily aerate or have a filter circulate the water through the peat. This will help soften the water. You will need to test the water daily to see how long it will take to make the water the hardness level you want it at. Once you arrive at that level, turn off the filter/aeration and remove either the peat or the water to a separate container for future use. This is what we had to do to get our hard Florida water safe for wild caught Discus.
IF you make the water too soft, just mix it with some of the new tap water which will dilute the hardness.
Hope this helps.

thank you very much
three last questions:
1: how long does this softening process usually take? because i live in an apartment and i dont want to have a 100L vat sitting in my moms living room for 3 days, but if theres no other way i'll do it
2: could this be done directly in the aquarium in case it took too long?
3: these two things pop up when i search for peat moss. which one are you refering to?
1.

2.


thanks!

 

[Andy Sager]

thank you very much
three last questions:
1: how long does this softening process usually take? because i live in an apartment and i dont want to have a 100L vat sitting in my moms living room for 3 days, but if theres no other way i'll do it
2: could this be done directly in the aquarium in case it took too long?
3: these two things pop up when i search for peat moss. which one are you refering to?
1.
View attachment 391954
2.
View attachment 391955

thanks!

No, this is not a quick fix. How long it's going to take is all going to depend on how much moss you use and how often the water circulates through it. You do not want to do this in your main tank as it's going to be messy to clean up and clean out of the water.

The moss in pic#2 looks like what I was using. Another thing you can use is botanicals like Indian almond leaves, Alder cones, certain oak leaves or coconut shells which all will help counter the chemicals that make the water hard but these take much longer and will release tannins into your water so you'll have a secondary issue that you'll have to deal with if you don't like dark water.
Another option is to buy distilled or R/O water and use that to cut the tap water's hardness. ( FYI, THIS is the fastest solution to your issue) I'd also check with your water company to see why the change in parameters.

 

[ThomasWFB]

No, this is not a quick fix. How long it's going to take is all going to depend on how much moss you use and how often the water circulates through it. You do not want to do this in your main tank as it's going to be messy to clean up and clean out of the water.

The moss in pic#2 looks like what I was using. Another thing you can use is botanicals like Indian almond leaves, Alder cones, certain oak leaves or coconut shells which all will help counter the chemicals that make the water hard but these take much longer and will release tannins into your water so you'll have a secondary issue that you'll have to deal with if you don't like dark water.
Another option is to buy distilled or R/O water and use that to cut the tap water's hardness. ( FYI, THIS is the fastest solution to your issue) I'd also check with your water company to see why the change in parameters.

Thank you very much.