I currently have a planted Nanocube that has been giving me fits for the last few years. Fish seem to have a tough time surviving after being introduced to the tank. And even if they do survive the initial release, a couple of water changes later will do them in. So I'm trying to figure out exactly what's going on and the first thing I'd like to ask about is water hardness.
To start with, my ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels are all zero. PH out of the tap is 7.2. The only peculiarity I've run into as far as water chemistry is concerned is in hardness. I'm using one of those KH/GH droplet test kits and while it takes only one drop for the KH test to turn to the yellow endpoint color, I can not, for the life of me, get the GH test to change color. At all. I think at one point I added almost 100 drops into a 5ml sample of water and it STILL hadn't changed to the green end color. And I tried this with TWO different GH droplet test kits. I originally thought maybe the first kit was too old (a couple of years) so bought another one but the new one didn't bring about a result either.
So, what in the world is going on with the general hardness of my water? Is it just way too hard for the test kits to register? And if so, what effect would this have on fish? Would I need to use a much longer acclimation procedure? Previously I've just been transferring water from the tank to the bag over a period of an hour or two.
To start with, my ammonia/nitrite/nitrate levels are all zero. PH out of the tap is 7.2. The only peculiarity I've run into as far as water chemistry is concerned is in hardness. I'm using one of those KH/GH droplet test kits and while it takes only one drop for the KH test to turn to the yellow endpoint color, I can not, for the life of me, get the GH test to change color. At all. I think at one point I added almost 100 drops into a 5ml sample of water and it STILL hadn't changed to the green end color. And I tried this with TWO different GH droplet test kits. I originally thought maybe the first kit was too old (a couple of years) so bought another one but the new one didn't bring about a result either.
So, what in the world is going on with the general hardness of my water? Is it just way too hard for the test kits to register? And if so, what effect would this have on fish? Would I need to use a much longer acclimation procedure? Previously I've just been transferring water from the tank to the bag over a period of an hour or two.