kH - Very High Should I Worry?

[drdud]

Tank Specs below. Was worried about water being too hard (cuz I used Black Diamond grit as a substrate, which is a coal slag product). Purchased a kH test kit. Tap water was 322 ppm. Tank was 304 ppm. Should be <200? Only way to lower is distilled water? Am I hurting my fish? pH is 8.2. I guess it is REALLY buffered. This explains why I added an entire bottle of 'ph down' when I first filled the tank with no change in pH. Besides leaving a nasty bathtub ring, is water this hard bad? If it doesn't matter, I would just as soon spend money on something other than distilled water. If I only had a 10 gal, I would just use a combination of distilled and tap to get a good mix, but my 55 gal will really cost me $$$. I would rather save for a 75 gal or a 125 gal or a . . . . . .

Fish seem very happy. Corys are very active and constantly play in the substrate. I read after I changed to this substrate that it is sharp. None of the corys have lost the barbels. This substrate has been in the tank for about a month.

Tank Specs:
10 gal tank. A few Plants. Cycled (Ammonia and Nitrites=0, Nitrates=10 ppm) 6 neons, 3 green corys (all 3/4" and will be moved as they grow), 1 pleco (~3" and will be moved when he grows).

 

[liv2padl]

Coal slag is typically a very abrasive material widely used in removing paint and rust from steel and concrete. not hurting the corydoras barbels? perhaps "yet" but sooner rather than later?

that's certainly hard water you've got now as you said, and if that number represents your kH, i think it's too high in my opinion. i'd expect that to be a gH value. Tanganyikan cichlids would absolutely LOVE your water but i'm surprised that your corydoras and neons tolerate it. if it were me, i'd change out that substrate for one that (a) wasn't sharp and abrasive and (b) didn't have such a dramatic impact on your water chemistry.

 

[drdud]

The high numbers are from my tap. The tap water was actually higher than the tank water. The abrasive is a 'fine grit'. Sand used to be used as a grit blast material too. They quit using it only because of the silica concentration in air being harmful to the people breathing the dust. Thanks for the comments, but what will happen to my fish because of the water?

 

[icka]

it depends on where fish are raised, if they were raised in tap water in that area than the tap wont hurt them. My ph is 8.4 with hardness off the charts because that is where I live. I buy fish from around here because they were either born in it or have been acclimated to it for a little while. It depends where you got the fish, i would imagine it would be awful for wild caught ones but ones raised in captivity should be fine.