How can I lower the hardness of the water in my fish tank?

Question

I have a 30 gallon Malawi cichlid tank and recently put crushed coral in my tank. The water is way too hard. I took some more of the coral out to see if it was that I had too much in the tank and it still continues to be about 350. Some pet stores say theres nothing I can do and others say they have something that will only temporarily solve the problem. I know that cichlids like hard water but I need to lower it just a bit.What should I do?

Answer 1

Hardness is tough to bring down! It's easy to bring up, as you know, but decreasing it is nearly impossible.

Remove the crushed coral. If you want to use sand, use silica sand, sand blasting sand or pool filter sand. Eventually, as you do water changes, the hardness and pH will go down.

Otherwise, filter your water through peatmoss. Boil some peatmoss so it sinks and it in your filter box. It's not a miracle fix but it might help.

Other products like pH down (pH and water hardness are directly related, btw) are ineffective. They may bring down the hardness temporarily, but hard water has a high buffering capacity. So in a couple days, the water will be just as hard as it used to be.

Oh, how many fish do you have in there? I am concerned that 30 gallons is pretty small for malawi cichlids.

Answer 2

IMO it is never a good idea to try and mess with the hardness or pH of a tank.

This is because it is very, very hard to get a stabil environment when you are changing those two things.

I would suggest that you leave it alone, as you are correct that African cichlids do better in hard water.

It is far better to have stable environment, even if it is not the ideal water chemistry.

Answer 3

I'm not sure, I would suggest some driftwood, it will drop the ph level a bit for a while though, but it will soften the water up gradually.

Answer 4

dont know