FishProfiles.com Message Forums

Yeah. My water is fickle. It comes out of my tap with a pH under 6, and very soft. Suddenly, it's gotten a pH of 7.6 and hard, which my cichlids,I'm sure, enjoy, but I'm not too sure why it did that. Additionally, my sister has very hard water, and would like to keep regular trops. She's a beginner, so I'd rather not throw cichlids in her tank.

Basically: How do you soften water, and how do you harden water? and how do you KEEP it that way?

Hi,
You don't say where you live, but frequently muni water
supplies will change wells, or sites from which they
pull water for the town. Sometimes the water comes
from different aquafers, or different rivers, or different
parts of a lake. In the latter case, one could be a few
hundreds of feet from the shoreline, and in another near
the out flow from a river. In any case it can result
in different water chemistries. They usually change these
sites on a quarterly to semi-annual basis.

The way to lower the hardness and pH is to treat the water
with peat. A handfull trapped in the toe of a panty hose
leg, and in the output of your filter will make a
difference.
The way to raise the hardness of the water depends upon
how much you want to raise it and how much control of
the process you want. If you are keeping African Rifts,
then you want the water hard, and you want it to stay
hard. The best way would to use crushed coral, or
crushed dolomite, or crushed limestone as your
substrate.
If you want to raise it just a little, then some of
the above material in the toe of the hose, and placed
in the output of the filter will harden the water.
You can regulate the hardness by increasing
or reducing the amount of material is in the toe.

There are chemicals that will do the same thing, but
they are expensive, and must be constantly replaced.
With the peat, or crushed stone, that is not the case.

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

yup frank pretty much answered it!

just thought id add shell grit, aragonite or crushed limestone as a substrate will also harden water. you can use bicarb soda to raise pH.

peat will soften your water but it will also stain it as it leaches tannins into the water. if you dont like this then i guess youll just have to get chemical buffers from your LFS.

hope this helps!

Carlos