water hardness

[loucas6290]

waht would be the best water hardness for breeding harlequin tetras. also, i believe that where i live has considerably hard water, i am not sure because as of late i have had no money to buy a hardness test kit. but if i need to bring the water hardness down, how would i go about doing it?

does anyone know the water hardness of Rockland County NY or Orange COunty NY or somewehre near here.

PS: the tank that i am going to attempt to bring the hardness to what it needs is A 10g semi-heavily planted with amazon swords and crypts

 

[Nick23]

hmm

Well first of all, it will be very difficult to breed any fish in a 10 gal, I would reccomend at least a 20 Gal for Rasboras. The water should be pretty soft and acidic. You probably have very hard alkaline water. The best bet would be to get some distilled water, or RO water for the tank. I would shoot for a PH of around 6.5 and a GH of around 2-3.
They will need exellent water quality to breed, and that will be hard to maintain in a ten gallon. If it were me, I'd get a 20 Gal to house the rasboras in, and have a 10 gal set up to rear the fry.
I am going to be trying to breed Cardinal Tetras, and I'll be using a 30 Gal, 20 Gal and a 10 Gal tank to breed my tetras in. The 30 Gal will be used to house the general population just for my enjoyment, and the 20 will be a sparser tank, not exactly the prettiest thing, but much more conducive to breeding, plus i will be better able to control the water conditions with a plain tank and lots of cabomba and java moss.
Then the 10 gal will be used for rearing fry. the filter will basically have a fry net around the water intake and output to keep fry from getting sucked up or tumbled around.

let me know if you have any more questions, or if i can help a little more with specifics. Someone else might have more detailed info on Rasboras. My Forte is Tetras.