Water hardness?

Question

I just set up my tank a couple of weeks ago and put my first fish in about a week ago. My levels are all pretty good except water hardness because the water is very hard in my area. I was going to look at getting a water softner product but somethings I read about certain tropicals say that they actually prefer a harder water.
Should I bother to address this and if so what products or ideas are good for bringing this level down?

Answer 1

dont worry about hardness it is the least of your worries. If you want to, a couple tablespoons of aquarium salt will bring it down. Goldfish and African cichlids LOVE hard water

adamprice, Mollies are from Asia in soft water. All tetras and characins (tetras, paranahs, etc) and S.A. Cichlids need soft water

Answer 2

Water hardness means, that there are certain salts in the water
1-You can eather filter your water with a water filter, should be available in every big store, just look on the label if they filter out the salts like magnesium etc....
2-Or you can buy, what is a bit more expensive, distilled water, where the salts are mostly taken out already
But above all you should check , like you said if your fishes need hard or soft water...

Answer 3

A water softener will add sodium ions to the water in exchange for calcium and magnesium ions.I Do not belive it will be benificial to your fishes health. Your only goal should be to achieve a nutral ph level You can add distilled bottled water to your aquarium to reduce the hardness however you do not want to achieve Grains per gallon of hardness. You should be concentrating more on a good carbon filtration system and ammonia reducing filtration.
Your least expensive soulution to control the mineral content in the water is distilled bottled water added to the tank for dilution .

Answer 4

Find out how hard it is. If it is really hard...go for some african cichlids, or livebearers(guppies,mollies,swordtails,platies etc) or if it is medium you can do south american cichlids (other than discus, angels, rams) or some tetras in a community tank. If you want to bring the levels down, invest in an RO/DI unit (around $150 for a good one) which takes out chlorine/chloromine, drops the hardness etc etc)

Answer 5

Water hardness should not really matter for tropical or cold water fish, since they will adapt to your water conditions. But do not use water softners since they contain chemicals that are harmful for fish.

Answer 6

Boiling the water removes SOME of the dissolved salt therefore softening the water. Collecting rainwater,not from a cement foof as this contains powered limestone) and dilute your tap water.You can also buy ion-exchange resin from your local aquarium

Answer 7

hardwater contains heavy metals such as lead. this when taken can cause harmful effects which is similar in both humans and animals. so drinking water and the water used for manufacture of medicines n other products for human or animal purposes are demineralised before usage using techniques like reverse osmosis, distillation etc

Answer 8

I don't know about any products, but I would suggest trying to find fish that prefer similar water hardness/softness so they can all tolerate and thrive.

Answer 9

The total hardness is measured in degrees of hardness (dH), as follow: 2-8 dH=soft, 9-16 dH=medium hard, 17-30 dH=hard. You can find out how hard you tap water is by contacting the local water department. If the degree of hardness of you water falls in the range of soft to medium hard, most fish will be comfortable in it. If the water is harder, you will have to soften it (see local pet store for help).

Here you go:
http://www.fishdoc.co.uk/water/hardness.htm
http://www.ahc.umn.edu/rar/MNAALAS/Fish.html#Hardness
http://cs.bmcc.cc.or.us/stuproj/CS195W03/miles/Advanced.htm

Answer 10

salt reduces the hardness of water so if you get a few fishes that are salt tolerant to salt just add a few spoons to your tank every few days or so