so i have had an 29 gallon up and running for 6 months and been having good luck with the fish, i have an API master test kit i have been using, but never had a kit to test the gh and kh. So i bought the API kit the other day and tested today. the gh took 22 drops to turn color and the kh took 19, witch is off the API charts. i have well water with and iron filter and a water softner in the house and use this water to do water changes, and have not had any problems with the fish. the ph is 8.2 , ammonia was .25 , with 0 nitrites , 0 nitrates. the fish are tropical community fish, 3 cories, 1fancy Goldfish, 3 platies, 1 Common Pleco, 3 featherfin catfish, and 3 gouriamis. all seem healthy and active. I'm trying to figure my water out because i'm going to start a 90 gallon african cichlid tank soon. i have been drip acclamating all my fish with good success. thanks for any answers.

Read more: gh / kh off the chart

Well....I'll start with if you are not having any problems and it has been that way for a while - don't worry about it.

Are you adding a drop, cap and shake/flip a couple of times, add another drop, cap....?

Surprised you have not had issues. Your fish mixture is not very good and your tank appears to be overstocked. First off, the goldfish shouldn't be in there with tropicals...they are a coldwater fish and a 29g tank is probably pushing it - just for it. A common pleco can get to over 12" long and shouldn't be in there. Are these Gouramis the dwarf type? You have a mixture of potential problems.

yea, add drop, cap and shake just like it says, yea the gouramis are dwarf and the pleco and featherfins will go in the new 90 when they get bigger, pleco is about 4 inches now and the largest featherfin is 3 1/2. the last fish i added was about 2 months ago, and no aggression at all.

Your water is fine for Livebearers, Rift Valley Cichlids and Brackish water Fishes. Not very good for Toropical Rainforest Fishes (soft, acid water) like Tetras, Rasboras, Corys and South Amer4ican Cichlids. The problem you may have is buying fishes from Big Box stores. Often their ph and hardness will be much lower than yours. Alwys introduce these fishes slowly to your tank so they can adjust to the radically different water parameters in your tank.

What are your readings on your water before you put it in the tank, that sould be a problem.

__________________

29g Tall FW: Many Swordtails: 1 lemon, 6-8 neon/pineapple, 1 Gold Tuxedo, ? fry; 1 Clown Pleco; 3 Otocinclus Cats, and MTS.
Planted: Amazon Swords.

The only place where success comes before work
is in the dictionary.

When using water treated with a water softner like the op stated the GH should register very low if the softner is working. The softner should be replacing the calcium and magnesium with sodium ions at a two to one ratio. This would result in a two fold increase in the TDS while dropping the Ca and Mg (GH) to near zero.

That is why water that has been treated with the common household softner is not recommended to use alone.

I'm not sure what effect the treatment would have on the KH, I'm thinking little to none.

__________________
Do fish get thirsty?
How to fishless cycle your aquarium http://www.aquariumforum.com/f66/fis...cle-15036.html

Information on API FW test kit http://www.aquariumforum.com/f2/api-...ion-15347.html

Those test kits measure 1 degree hardness for each drop.

Therefore you kh is 9 degrees and dgh is 22 degrees.

In my tanks with just a sand substrate KH and gh rose to high values over years. Like 19 dkh and 39 dgh. Yes the 30 guppies (including 6 reproducing adulats) did just fine for years.

But neon tetras dod not do so well there.

So I tried peat moss in the substrate. With the peat kh stayed at 4 degrees and gh stayed at 9 degrees for over two years and neon tetras thrived.

So you might try some peat moss to see if that helps.

But even without you could be fine.

my .02

__________________
fw leiden since 1979, fo salt since 1979, mixed reef 55g 2002-2009. Strong emphasis on the tank taking care of itself. Balanced with plant life, no water changes, tap water, no filters in FW. Only dosing calcium, alk, mag in marine reef tanks. http://www.aquariumforum.com/f15/my-...ods-26410.html
recent tanks (till 2009) 7 years- 10g FW leiden 7 yrs, 55g mixed reef 7, 2 yrs, 20g FW leiden, 10 g fw leiden , 29g mixed reef, current tank 55g leiden