GH, KH, PH through the roof!

[Nyte]

Hi,

I was just over in the planted tank forum and asked about an algae outbreak... which lead to me testing all my water parameters for the first time besides nitrite, nitrate and ammonia. YIKES!! Scary results.

My readings were:

Tank water
10-15 ppm nitrate
gh - 240 ppm
kh - 160 ppm
ph - between 7.5 and 8.0

Tap water
5 ppm nitrate
ph 7.5
(didn't test gh, kh. since we constantly have calcium stains on everything I didn't think it was nessessary. If anyone thinks i should, let me know)

So my question is how do I lower the GH, KH, PH safely? Peat in the filter? Should I be worried? Why is the ph higher in the tank water?

I've kept fish for about 4 years in water this hard and although there have been losses nothing unsual.

 

[pica_nuttalli]

peat only meddles with the pH.

gh & kh are functions of the amount of minerals/ions/etc present in your water. if you have planted tanks, count yourself lucky that your plants will get lots of minerals at no extra charge. if you don't have plantings, its still not necessarily a bad thing.

if you really want softer water, you pretty much need to just start using reverse osmosis water. that's really the only fish-friendly way to pull out those minerals.

 

[Nyte]

Oh ok. Good!! So the readings shouldn't be harmful to the fish?

The little inserts that came with my test kit made it sound like those readings were a VERY bad thing.