Hard Water

[captainhook]

Hello all,

After testing my water, I believe that my water is hard. The water that I put in the tank was tap/city water and has been in my tank for almost 4 weeks now. All fish seem to be doing fine, all my other things that I have tested for seem to be fine too. Do I need to do anything about the hardness of the water? If so, what can I do?

Thanks,

 

[Sully]

nope. no need to worry about water in most cases. fish typically adapt, or are adapted through generations of breeding far removed from the natural water conditions listed in most descriptions of fish.

What are the values for gh and kh?

 

[captainhook]

Not sure what gh and kh are but, all the things that I tested for are in check. The test that I completed covers nitrate, nitrite, PH, water hardness, acidity, and I think something else that I can not remember at this time. All other tests were within the the acceptable levels on the test set.

 

[Roan Art]

Exactly as Sully said.

You can really only determine how hard or soft water is with GH/KH, combined with pH. KH is carbonite hardness. With a "K" because of the German Karbonite. GH is general hardness.
Roan

 

[rrkss]

I determined my water hardness by how often I needed to scrub my toilets and clean my showers. In my old house, I had lots of soap scum and lime deposits on my toilet (very hard water). In my new house, I sometimes forget to clean the showers or toilets because I never get any soap scum or other nasties from hard water. My appliances rarely ever need de-liming though my kH tests between 3 and 4 depending on the day and whether it rained or not so I guess I do have some hardness in my water.

 

[Watcher74]

There are two different kinds of "Hardness". Yeah, GH and KH have already been mentioned. But the traditional term of "Hard" water refers only to GH. GH determines how easy or hard it is to get a lather going with soap.

KH has little to no affect in creating a lather with soap, but is another type of hardness.

Traditionally I do not have hard water. My GH is less that 1 dGH. But my KH is over 17 dKH. So I have very "Hard" carbonate hardness and a lot of white crusty buildup on faucets and around the tanks. PH stable as a rock sitting at 8.5.

I have read that "Hardness" affecting biological life is concerned only with GH not KH. But I'm not sure about that. Needs more research before I would really decide that it was truth.