Changing Water Hardness

[Onzlow]

I’m restarting my 55 gallon tank. I filled it with water softener treated water, and once everything was ready added 7 tiger barbs. Two of the barbs died in the first 48 hours. I took a water sample to the fish store for testing. All of the levels were fine, but my water was very soft while theirs was very hard. The store is just a couple miles away and probably get’s its water from the same source as my house. The city uses well water and it is very hard.

So – I did a 20% water change with the water softener bypassed. The hardness increased. But now, 4 days after adding the barbs (2days after the water change) - I have another dead one. Here are the current water stats:

Ammonia – 0
Nitrate – 0
Nitrite – 0
Hardness (gh)– 75 ppm
Chlorine – 0
Alkalinity (kh)– 180
pH – 8.5 (the max reading for this test kit.)

The fish store said their water is the same, except the hardness is 300 ppm or greater – which is what my untreated tap water would be.

I’m guessing that the shock of going from super hard to super soft water stressed the fish that died. I figure that I should get the hardness in line with the store’s before adding any more fish. What’s a safe method for changing hardness in terms of frequency and amount of water changes? Would 20% water changes every couple of days be too much / too fast? The single 20% change I did took the hardness from near 0 ppm to the current 75ppm.

The remaining fish all seem OK – they’ve started coming to the surface at feeding time and seem to be doing well. They’ve already been through one sudden shift in hardness, and I don’t want to run them through another.

TIA.

 

[loraxchick]

hardness plays a role in water chemistry...if you didnt acclimate them properly things like the change in water chem (hardness and probably pH) might have caused the deaths. small water changes would be the way to go from here. the survivors will most likely be ok tho as they made it through the transition into your tank.

 

[Onzlow]

Thanks for the reply. The surviving fish seems fine, but I don't want to have that kind of loss rate in the future.

I guess I'll just keep up with small water changes, replacing the softened water with hard, till it is close to what the store uses. I don't think there is any way to acclimate the fish to the soft water when introducing them to the new tank.

Thanks again!

 

[waterdrop]

The hardness topic you've focused on may be an issue but its not clear from your post that you are aware of the ways of establishing a biological filter. Did you fishless cycle your system with ammonia prior to the fish introductions or are you following a method of doing a fish-in cycle? What test kit are you using?

There are pinned topics for these topics in the "New to the Hobby" section within the Beginners Resource Center.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[Onzlow]

The hardness topic you've focused on may be an issue but its not clear from your post that you are aware of the ways of establishing a biological filter. Did you fishless cycle your system with ammonia prior to the fish introductions or are you following a method of doing a fish-in cycle? What test kit are you using?

There are pinned topics for these topics in the "New to the Hobby" section within the Beginners Resource Center.

~~waterdrop~~

Thanks - the tank had been up and running for close to 20 years. It only had a couple of fish in it, and unfortunately when I added some new ones a while back they introduced ich and wiped out the old fish I had in the tank. So, the biological filter is pretty well established. I treated for ich for a week, during which time I put a little food in the tank daily to feed the bacteria in the filter. I then did a couple of water changes and re-introduced fish.

Last night I found one of the barbs stuck to the intake of the Aquaclear 500 filter, and I thought it was dead. It turns out, it was just stuck there - could not esscape the suction. That reminded me that when I first set up the tank I had that problem (lost a couple of Kuhle Loaches to it) and had put a screen over the intake. I removed the screen some years ago as the only fish in it were big enough to not get stuck by the filter.

Since I've found my dead fish stuck to that intake, and since it's the small males who have all died, I realize that maybe the probelm is the filter...

 

[loraxchick]

next time you have clams for dinner save the shells. boil them and scrape out the remaining fleshy bits and boil again. then smash them up with a hammer and add them either to your filter( in the toe of some pantyhose) or sprinkle some around in the tank. you shold only need a fistful. that should get your hardness up a bit. ive heard cuttlebone works too.
it is a cheap alternative to crushed coral which lots of members recommend with soft water (whose pH drops a lot).
just an idea
good luck.