# my hardness read 200!



## bc_buddah (Dec 18, 2005)

so i lost about $85 of new fish (Red Snakeheads). What's weird is that my 6 pygo's have been fine in that tank for over a year. my big pleco is still there doing well. but after i sold my pygos and bought red snakeheads (which are suposed to be really hardy) they all died and didn't eat and looked really sluggish and bad.

so i thought wtf? my water? checked everything and it was fine, until i went to my LFS and tested my hardness. They said it was 200 and should be around 5.

*1. could the hardness of killed my new snakeheads? 
2. how come my pygo were doing good in the same tank? 
3. is hardness THAT important? 
4. how do i get my hardness down?
5. my substrate is mixed with 80% gravel and 20% crushed coral. could this be the only factor to my hardness? or am i lacking water changes?*

thx for answering my questions.


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## greenmonkey51 (Aug 16, 2004)

Unless you threw the fish straight into the tank, I doubt the hardness killed them. The hardness is 200 what. Is it dkh, meq/lt, or ppm. For freshwater the hardness is not the important. Unless it rapidly bouncing around. You are not going to soften your water without some huge changes. The first step would be a RO/DI system and then you'd have to go from there. Also what do you mean by your water is fine. Post some numbers.


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## bc_buddah (Dec 18, 2005)

greenmonkey51 said:


> Unless you threw the fish straight into the tank, I doubt the hardness killed them. The hardness is 200 what. Is it dkh, meq/lt, or ppm. For freshwater the hardness is not the important. Unless it rapidly bouncing around. You are not going to soften your water without some huge changes. The first step would be a RO/DI system and then you'd have to go from there. Also what do you mean by your water is fine. Post some numbers.


water is fine means = ammonia = 0 , nitrite is 0, nitrate is 0 and ph is 7

your post didn't make sense to me, i don't understand the abreviations.

*what is dkh? 
what's meq/lt?
what's ppm?*


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## greenmonkey51 (Aug 16, 2004)

Those are all measures of hardness. dkh is degrees of carbonate hardness. meq/lt is milliequivelent per liter and ppm is parts per million. If its 200ppm then its around 11dkh which is a little high for how low your ph is. Get a second reading and make sure the test kit is less than a year old.


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## Piranha Guru (Nov 24, 2005)

bc_buddah said:


> Unless you threw the fish straight into the tank, I doubt the hardness killed them. The hardness is 200 what. Is it dkh, meq/lt, or ppm. For freshwater the hardness is not the important. Unless it rapidly bouncing around. You are not going to soften your water without some huge changes. The first step would be a RO/DI system and then you'd have to go from there. Also what do you mean by your water is fine. Post some numbers.


water is fine means = ammonia = 0 , nitrite is 0, nitrate is 0 and ph is 7

your post didn't make sense to me, i don't understand the abreviations.

*what is dkh? 
what's meq/lt?
what's ppm?*
[/quote]

greenmonkey already covered some of this, but I'll add my 2 cents.

dkH = degrees kH or buffering capability (dGH = hardness). mEq/lt = milliequivalents per liter and I've never seen it used with my test kits. ppm = parts per million and appears to be what your readings are in. You can convert degrees to ppm by dividing by 17.1 or 17.9 depending on whether it is American or German.

Hardness usually refers to GH and 5ppm would be very soft while 200ppm would be hard. The other thing to keep in mind is whether or not the LFS person knows what their kit is testing (ppm or degrees). Hardness won't kill a fish and neither will buffering that high (if it is your kH that is 200ppm then your pH will remain pretty stable = no pH crash).

My concern would be zero nitrates...that indicates an uncycled tank which can account for you fish dying.

As stated by greenmonkey, your readings don't really make sense...I'd get your own Freshwater test kit and do it yourself.


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## greenmonkey51 (Aug 16, 2004)

Zero nitrates don't necessarily means the tank isn't cycled. I've had a couple tanks over the years with 0 nitrates. If you don't overstock and do a lot of water changes its possible.


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## Piranha Guru (Nov 24, 2005)

greenmonkey51 said:


> Zero nitrates don't necessarily means the tank isn't cycled. I've had a couple tanks over the years with 0 nitrates. If you don't overstock and do a lot of water changes its possible.


Only if you have a lot of plants or test your water after a major water change or series of water changes. Water changes just dilute existing nitrates depending on how much your replace and plants are the only way to get to zero or near zero unless your are doing water changes so frequently that you wouldn't need a biofilter anyway.


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## bc_buddah (Dec 18, 2005)

BioTeAcH said:


> Unless you threw the fish straight into the tank, I doubt the hardness killed them. The hardness is 200 what. Is it dkh, meq/lt, or ppm. For freshwater the hardness is not the important. Unless it rapidly bouncing around. You are not going to soften your water without some huge changes. The first step would be a RO/DI system and then you'd have to go from there. Also what do you mean by your water is fine. Post some numbers.


water is fine means = ammonia = 0 , nitrite is 0, nitrate is 0 and ph is 7

your post didn't make sense to me, i don't understand the abreviations.

*what is dkh? 
what's meq/lt?
what's ppm?*
[/quote]

greenmonkey already covered some of this, but I'll add my 2 cents.

dkH = degrees kH or buffering capability (dGH = hardness). mEq/lt = milliequivalents per liter and I've never seen it used with my test kits. ppm = parts per million and appears to be what your readings are in. You can convert degrees to ppm by dividing by 17.1 or 17.9 depending on whether it is American or German.

Hardness usually refers to GH and 5ppm would be very soft while 200ppm would be hard. The other thing to keep in mind is whether or not the LFS person knows what their kit is testing (ppm or degrees). Hardness won't kill a fish and neither will buffering that high (if it is your kH that is 200ppm then your pH will remain pretty stable = no pH crash).

My concern would be zero nitrates...that indicates an uncycled tank which can account for you fish dying.

As stated by greenmonkey, your readings don't really make sense...I'd get your own Freshwater test kit and do it yourself.








[/quote]

ya i dunno wutsup with my tank.. sumtimes i trip out and think it's not cycled. but cycled or not it shouldn't kill my fish because i had zero as a reading for ammo, trites and trates. plus i've had piranha in that tank for over a year sometimes going 3+ weeks w/o changing water. even my pleco should have died then if my tank wasn't cycled right?

so hardness can't kill fishes? then why did i lose 5 snakeheads?


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## greenmonkey51 (Aug 16, 2004)

You probably overloaded the filter. With one piranha there was a limited amount of bacteria in the filters. When you change out one piranha with five snakeheads. You exceeded the bioload and bacteria couldn't process all the ammonia. The spike in ammonia probably killed the snakeheads.


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## bc_buddah (Dec 18, 2005)

greenmonkey51 said:


> You probably overloaded the filter. With one piranha there was a limited amount of bacteria in the filters. When you change out one piranha with five snakeheads. You exceeded the bioload and bacteria couldn't process all the ammonia. The spike in ammonia probably killed the snakeheads.


i had 6 pygo, 10 inches and under. 12 inch pleco too. not just 1 piranha, my bad, shoulda clarified


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