How to lower water hardness?

[evanklee55]

I need some help. How can i lower the hardness of my water ? I have a freshwater tank for tropical fish? What is the easiest way?
Please i need help.

[SnakeIce]

RO filter... don't know of many ways that are effective besides that... you could try and see if you have a local water system that has a different source than yours does to see if thier water is softer..

[emoore]

Why do you want to lower the hardness of your water?

[Lauren]

peet also works, but I am a big fan of RO water myself.

[Kagh't]

lots of lots of elodia densa, strips the calcium and carbonates right out of the water...

[Bristlenose Chuck]

I agree with emoore. What is your reason for wanted to lower the hardness of your water? Most of the time its not required. You should have a really good reason for doing this before you go messing around with your water.

[Ghoti Boy]

If his water is really hard and he wants to keep tetras or rams, or fish along those lines, then he will need to lower the gh.

[travelinman1969]

Agree with the RO people. I use it. My fish prefer lower ph levels and with really hard water it's impossible to lower it. I used to live in an area where the water was so hard that adding 4 gallons of city water to my 150 would spike the ph from 6.8 to 7.4. That's not good for the fish. I spent tons on ph reducers to no avail.

[evanklee55]

i havent got my fish yet. I want to get neons and guppies. My ph is fine. My water hardness is up near 300 ppm. I would like to get it down to about 150ppm fo my fish. That would be about perfect. So how exactly should i do that. Should I put all new water in? What kind of peet? What is Elodia Densa?

[Lauren]

What is your ph? 300ppms is high for neons. Mine is naturally a little higher than that, and I had bad luck with tetras before I started using RO. Pillows work too, but they aren't much fun to keep. You have to keep recharging them and what not, its easier (but a lot more cumbersome) to use RO. I can now keep all kinds of tetras, rams, gouramis, and other fish known to love soft water with my RO.

[Hound]

I'm thinking the water softening pillow would be the cheaper alternative. From what I can remember though 100 ppm would be fine for the tetras, but they can live in higher.

[Hans]

get a gigantic drfit log

[RTR]

Water softening pilows are salt exchange resins, and the salt exchange makes the TDS in the treated water higher, not lower. It seem to be TDS and not the pH or KH that matters most for breeding purposes.