Hi,

I have a well established 110l tank but my hardness has always been high, very high! This has meant sticking to a limited variety of more hardy fish. In there currently are 6 tiger barbs, 1 siamese fighter, 6 scissortails and a pair of bosemans.

I would love Angels and Gouramis but they don't survive in the hardwater. I'm joining this forum to find out if using a water softener pillow to reduce the hardness (it claims to reduce from the current gH and kH of 150ppm to next to nothing over 48 hours) will harm the fish already in the tank if it changes that quickly?

RO Water system

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Low tech method?.. add some driftwood that is "clean".. harvest some dead oak leaves and let the influence of those two drop the hardness... But really?.. If your tap water is hard, you'll be fighting that battle forever unless you invest in a RO unit..

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12 Tanks, 900 gallons. Discus/Angels/Malawi/Lake Victorias. Just added a 135 & 2 - 29's..

Welcome to the forum!

What are the actual values of the tank and out of the tap?

Who said Angels don't live in hard water? The same people that say they don't live in higher ph, I guess.

Heyo and welcome! Couple options you can look into! the best of course is an RO system! another method is to cut down your tap water with distilled water. That's what i do, we have some Terribly high AK here in coralville, IA (probably all the coral in the ground source!! HAHAHA) and i have found cutting the water (in my case) 60/40 tap to distilled, and adding a slight treatment of ph up (for my specific tank) and some conditioner provides some great results. Using a piece of actual wood in your tank will help to Leach out some special acids that while affecting ph slightly, will also compensate for the hardness in the water. ( by a very small amount but every bit helps!) We also have a LFS that has come to offer RO water by the gallon (@.25 cents per gallon) i guess they came the conclusion that after installing their RO system for the store, might as well turn a penny off of it considering the water is so rough here! so keep an eye out for that. Places like petco/petsmart, use tap water from where ever they are, and typically dont treat it too often so be careful if you use the old school warm the bag in the water then dump the bag in trick to acclimate fish as it will (not only) change your water chemistry, but also introduce new and random biology to your tank (no not the fish!)

/off

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welcome

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An easy and safe way to lower your hardness is by making water changes and water replacements only with distilled water. Make 20% water changes every few days with Distilled Water and you hardness will slowly drop. Your ph should also slowly drop. In making these water changes you are removing the Ca and Mg ions that cause hardness and HCO3 and CO3 ions that raise ph.

hello and welcome

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