Hard water, betta not thriving

[TheTenthDoctor]

My water is super hard. Other than that my water is perfect, but still my betta for my science experiment is not thriving. And no I am not experimenting on him. How can I change this. How can I get my little guy to thrive?

 

[Essjay]

You can 'soften' the tank water by mixing your tap water with a form of pure water such as RO, distilled or even rain water if you live somewhere there is no air pollution or crop spraying. A half and half mix will halve the hardness, or three quarters tap, one quarter RO will lower the hardness by a quarter.

 

[TheTenthDoctor]

So just collect rain water in a bucket? And then condition it and put it in the tank? I don't live too close to any farm land, and I am not in a heavily polluted city

 

[Essjay]

In theory, it doesn't need conditioning, but the tap water part of the mix will need conditioning.

If you use ran water you'll need to make sure you always have some. If it doesn't rain during a hot spell in the summer, you wouldn't be able to do a water change.

 

[seangee]

First test your rainwater so you know what you are dealing with. If you go this route you may want to consider a water but and collection system. Filling this from your roof gutters is most common. The problem with rainwater is what happens when it doesn't rain. Even in the UK (apparently it always rains here) we can go for several months without any rain. Then you have to use different water for your changes. That's why I use RO to make sure the fish are always getting the same.