Betta Fish Forum banner

How to lower water hardness?

1K views 5 replies 3 participants last post by  laughing 
#1 ·
I trust you guys the most here with your info, and I have EXTREMELY hard water in my community tank. How can I lower it? Thanks! :-?
 
#2 ·
#3 ·
Hahahaha- Love it bahamut!!

I love your post so far. You really did it for beginners didn't you? ;)

I considered using part bottled (softened) water but I don't have an airater so I don't want to lower the oxygen levels especially since I have ich right now. (Good news? I think they'll recover nicely! I caught it quick!)

Are water softeners effective? And I've never seen one of those pillows.. o_O
 
#4 ·
Thank you so much! Yes I made it for beginners because I still consider myself a beginner, so I just threw all my research into a post to make people's lives easier! Hehe

Awesome at catching Ich early, I brought home a snail for my goldfish that had Ich on it (sadly the snail died), but I saw one white spot on the tail...curecurecurecure! The Ich didn't know what hit them XD!

I'm not too sure, I've only seen the pillows a few times at the store. However I've recently found out (as well as other members) that hard water is probably better than soft water. A lot of people who have water softener machiness have unhealthy fish and plants due to the amount of salt that the water softener machine pumps through your house.

In both the houses I lived in with water softener machines when I was a child, my dad always had difficulty with fish staying alive for more than 3 years. Interestingly, two of my aunts who live in homes without a water softener have managed to keep fish to a ripe old age of 15 years+. Once my exams are over I'll probably update that thread about water softener information after researching it :p

The water at my apartment right now is fairly hard, I think it is 150 according to my testing kit...my fisheez are fine <3

(Also for some reason I find it HILARIOUS when I get an email saying "Laughing has replied to your post" LOL)
 
#6 ·
The fish have ich right now (2 only out of them all) due to me not quarantining the new fish I added. STUPID ME. She died yesterday, so today I jumped on getting their cure started.

They were losing activity (the Glow especially) but ever since I added a tad of aquarium salt (half the recommended amount, I added 2 tbsp and it's 20 gallons of water) they have all livened up quite a bit. They've all returned to their active, happy selves. The Glow is even eating now which I'm satisfied about.

Unfortunately I only have test strips currently (needed a cheap, quick thing since my money has gone to curing the ich!) and it just says extreme hardness and high alkalinity. pH was 8ish I believe (dumb memory, can't recall exactly).

I add a pH tab and it has gone down from what I can see. I haven't added a pH stabliizer in awhile so I just think it was from that. I don't add anything new into the tank and the pH has stayed the same over the couple weeks until recently.

I am not breeding/spawning. Well, the fish breed themselves, and if this ich cures up, I'm going to raise the fry to *hopefully* gain store credit to help me out with purchasing things for this hobby. I have a separate 5 gallon tank to set up for the fry until I can afford proper lighting for plants. I plan on using val. grasses ALL over the tank and putting in small rocks with holes and plenty of hiding spaces to hopefully keep the fry in there in the future.


@bahamut- I never thought of it that that is what comes up!! :lol: And I'm still a "beginner" but I'm a fast learner so I find myself to be slightly above intermediate now. Once I learn more "scientific" things about aquarium keeping will I move onto advanced. I just find it difficult to gain accurate information to move up!
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top