Carbonate Hardness

[Mort75]

another newb question here. I was looking at fish today on liveaquaria.com and was noticing that they all had a tad bite differnt paramaters for KH. anywhere from 3-12 KH. So i decided i would test my tap water for kh. To my suprise my tap water tested at 160 PPM. So my question is is my water realy that hard and way off or was the 3-12 Kh from the website measured in a diffrent unit them the ppm? im hoping my water isnt to hard. Someone please help me understand. Thanks

 

[SandraNewbie]

There are several units of hardness used. So it would help to know the site you got it from.
Usually 1 degree KH = 17.848 mg/L CaCO3 = 17.848ppm
so 3-12 would be 53.5-214.1ppm

 

[Mort75]

The site was www.liveaquaria.com thanks for your reply

 

[4seasons]

Tap water can be very hard. You just need to know if you have hard water before selecting soft water fish. My tap water is up around 260ppm. I only keep fish that are fine in hard water.