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I've been an aquarium lover for 30 interesting years, and I believe the most important factor in keeping beautiful plants and fish is soft water. Living in Ohio means dealing with very hard water (300 ppm), unless it was treated river water, which can no longer be done due to polution. I use Aquarium Pharmaceuticals Tap Water Filter also their Water Softener Pillow. I wish there was an easier way, because I am constantly filtering after water changes and additions in my 29 gal. tank.

Hi Sandy,
I'd be curious as to what you want your tank to read,
and what the figures are for your tap water.
The overwhelming majority of the plants that we have
available to us will grow in water that ranges from
the mid 6s to the low 8s, as will our fish, if properly
acclimated.

Frank


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

Hi Frank,
After filtering with Deionize Unit, the KH is 170ppm and the GH is 268.5 ppm. I'm trying for a softer water desirable to Anglefish and plants. According to articles on this website, the addition of driftwood can soften water and lower pH, but it seems to remain the same as it was when filtered through the Deionize filter unit. The cycling was completed only days ago (the Eco-Complete substrata required 3 months in a 29g). I lost a few plants, but some are rebounding. They were part of a River Assortment Plant Pack from ThatFishPlace. Overall, I am pleased with the plants as I ordered them during cold weather from Penn. I plan another partial water change soon, because I have to filter tap water for it. PS. I miss the bubbles of oxygen that cling to the glass when I added fresh (chlorine treated) water before I began using the DI unit. Thanks for your interest.

Liquid rock !

The GH won't bother the plants too much, they are more semsitive to KH, but even then that tends to be some of the more sensitive species.

Fish would be more problematic. But good introduction procedures to climatize the fish may do it.

Driftwood just won't make make that much of a dent in pH or GH, the drop will be very small.

Really an Reverse Osmosis system is usually the way people deal with such hard water. This will basically give you water that has nothing in it , basically 0ppm of GH and KH.
You will then need to add back the minerals to give some GH, for plants the GH should be a minimum of60ppm. But there are many products available to do this such as Seachem Equilibrium.

You can also do yourself - Magnesium Sulphate (Epsom Salts) and Calcium Chloride or Calcium Sulphate for Gh and Baking Soda for KH. These items are generally readily available.

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