# Very Hard Water



## jayrod (Oct 22, 2003)

I just moved and loaded my piranha tank up with (tap) water a few weeks ago. After cycling and all I loaded up my piranha. They are doing well - eating, swimming, and the like.

I finally got around to doing a hardness test and the water hardness is off the scale. After 30 drops I still couldnt get that damn tube to change from orange to green.

Is it possible that my water could be this hard (>30 dGH)? It tastes awful out of the tap.

Has anybody ever had this problem before?

Could I have a bad bottle of testing solution?

And of course whats the best way to fix this without causing much stress to the fish.


----------



## fluidnyc (Oct 15, 2003)

Water hardness refers to the amount of calcium and magnesium salts present in the water. Too much hard water causes a white crust to form on parts of the aquarium. Hard water makes it difficult to adjust the pH.

General Hardness, or gH as it is also known, is primarily the measure of calcium (Ca++) and magnesium (Mg++) ions in the water. GH is commonly expressed in parts per million (ppm) of calcium carbonate (CaCO3) or degrees hardness (dH). Water hardness follows these guidelines: 0 - 4 dH, 0 - 70 ppm : very soft4 - 8 dH, 70 - 140 ppm : soft8 - 12 dH, 140 - 210 ppm : medium hard 12 - 18 dH, 210 - 320 ppm : fairly hard18 - 30 dH, 320 - 530 ppm : hardOnce again each fish has a preferred gH, and if u can provide this a close as possible, then your fish will live a much happier life.

*Reducing GH *can be accomplished with the Water Softener Pillow. The Water Softener Pillow only removes GH and has no effect on KH. The easiest way to reduce GH and KH is with the Tap Water Filter. The Tap Water Filter will make deionized water with no GH or KH. You can than adjust the GH and KH with Electro-Right and pH Adjuster or use the deionized water to make water changes in your aquarium. Water changes with the Tap Water Filter will gradually reduce GH and KH through dilution. Adding deionized water to replace evaporated water prevents water hardness build-up.

Just some info i found, Good Luck-


----------

