Hard Water Issues

[Seed_Lord]

My tap water comes out at 8, threw in some almond leaves and some bog wood sitting at 6.5, gotta deal with the tannins which i personally dont mind but dont like the idea of chemical ph buffers aint clued up on them so rather go natural.

 

[rgatt74]

similiar water here, my pH is 8.2 out of the tap and doesn't budge even during my fishless cycle I never had a pH crash. when it came to deciding on fish I chose o use it to my advantage and chose fish that suited the water rather than complicate things with RO water and tons of testing. Settled on Tanganyikan cichlids, fantastic fish, and in a way I'm really pleased about having really hard water as it opens up the door to some really unusual fish with interesting body shapes, subtle beautiful colours and intriguing behaviour.

Didn't make sense to me to "fight" the tapwater, wanted fishkeeping to be a relaxing hobby rather than a chore, I don't have to do anything to the water at water change time just make sure its about the right temperature. My uncle lost hundreds of pounds worth of discus after a water change went wrong, don't want to risk that kind of thing happening!

I agree. I've never really worried about pH in the past but I lived in an area where the water was neutral out of the tap. Since I've lived here the 20 gallon I had has done fine. I jut picked what I like and for the most part it worked out fine. As I said before, the tetras didn't seems to live as long. Maybe Neons are a little more sensitive than other fish. But now that I am setting up a 75 gallon I wanted to do shoals of certain types of tetras and I was worried about losing a large group of fish as opposed to 4 or 5. And you're right about opening up to new kinds of fish. When I had neutral water from the tap I had zero success with Bala Sharks. Now Ive had them for at least 2 years with no problems, knock on wood.

 

[rgatt74]

My tap water comes out at 8, threw in some almond leaves and some bog wood sitting at 6.5, gotta deal with the tannins which i personally dont mind but dont like the idea of chemical ph buffers aint clued up on them so rather go natural.

I really wanted to put driftwood in the tank but the guy at the store kind of talked me out of it. What he had wasn't cured yet. He said it would take months of soaking and wouldn't move the pH all that much. Not sure if I want the stained water look.

How much bog wood do you have and what size is your tank?