Gh - Very Hard!

[kat]

:blink: Hi, just tested my water and has tested very hard for general hardness. Just wondering what the best way to soften water again? Everything else tested fine, and generally my gh is good! Have just been away for several days and used a feeding block and water neutralizer block under instruction from local fish store which I removed when I got home, as well as doing 25% water change yesterday. Would that have effected it? Thanks in advance for any advice. Cheers :D

[Chuckie]

how does your tap water test at the moment?

do you have rocks or other ornaments in the tank that might be dissolving and increasing the gh?

what sort of fish are you keeping - what are thir water requirements?

And when you say 'very hard', what do you mean exactly?

[Bettarazzi]

If you're normally happy with it then I'd say just water changes should bring back to the level you want. Otherwise the only way to soften it is to add water that is softer than what's already in the tank eg. rain water or reverse osmosis filtered water.

[kat]

how does your tap water test at the moment?

do you have rocks or other ornaments in the tank that might be dissolving and increasing the gh?

what sort of fish are you keeping - what are thir water requirements?

And when you say 'very hard', what do you mean exactly?

Hi Lilli,

We are on tank water which usually tests only slightly hard, and I don't have any rocks or ornaments that could be causing problems. I have 1 opaline gourami, 1 three spot gourami, 5 black widow tetras, 1 bristlenose catfish, and three tiny bumble bee gobys, have done some reading and all of them seem tolerant of most water conditions. My test kit is a Nutrafin Mini Master Test Kit and you count the drops until blue and then multiply by 20 to give gh, mine was 220 and it had "very hard" written next to it, normally it is 80. Hope this makes sense! Thanks :)