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Hi all, got a little question...

Water Test Results: GH 180mg/L, KH 120mg/L, PH 8-8.5,

I'm going to be ordering 50 Cardinal Tetra's later on today, the guy at the store has advised me that if i don't soften my water i will loose half of them. I bought 15 (from another store) a while ago and have only lost one, a few months ago, had them for ages now...

I dont really want to get into RO/DI water.

I'm a little cautious about using rain water as i wouldnt know whats in there... i live on the outskirts of a small town i'd guess its ok but who knows!

Should i look into 'Softening Pillows'? would 'Peat Fiber' work? reading through my filter manual it says that angels, south american cichlids & tetras rather this type of water, I'll be adding angels next month, and possibly my bolivian rams...

what do you guys think, the rams i've got are doing fine in my current water... Half of me thinks i shouldn't mess, half thinks i should try it so that i don't loose too many cardinals, and if they'd prefer it then why not...


Help please?

Last edited by chrism at 29-Oct-2005 10:02

I wouldn't mes with it, since it is just going to be a bunch of tedious work for you to ensure that the hardness remains at that level all the time. fish are quite adaptive, and as you said you've had cardinals in the water before and lost only one. So my recommendation is not to worry about it and just go through a slow acclimation to get them used to you water.

You might want to compare your LFS water to your own, and you might see how similar their water is to your own. the bigger the difference the longer and slower the acclimation should be.

Last edited by Megil Tel'Zeke at 29-Oct-2005 13:34

Your water is too hard for peat moss to be effective and water softening pillows cause problems. The only really good way to lower your ph and hardness would be to mix 50/50 with distilled or RO water.
Hardness shouldn't be a problem. My angel is currently in water about that hard. I don't know much about cardinals but if you've kept them before they should be fine. Most fish will adapt to any ph and hardness.
What you want to watch out for is how different your water is from the store you are getting the fish. If their water is much softer than yours and you aren't very careful acclimating that's where you will lose majority of the fish.

thanks guys, i think i'll chance it then, just aclimatise them really really really slowly!