Hard Water

[KrystaK]

I live on a well so my tap water is pretty hard, there are a lot of minerals in the water, and it has really built up in both my tanks.
In my 30 gal it's mostly around the filter but in my 5 gal it seems to be everywhere.

I was wondering if there were any non chemically ways to get rid of it?
I've used baking soda and vinegar, but that was to clean the glass between the light and the tank, and never came in contact with tank water.
(If I used baking soda and vinegar it would be during one of my spontaneous 100% water changes just so it wouldn't contaminate the tank as much)

Scrubbing like a billion times doesn't seem very efficient to me so I was wondering if there was just another way to do it

 

[mark2109111]

You should purchase an R/O unit for your tanks. It will take out the minerals in the water abd will make your water slightly softer.

 

[england]

I have very hard water,if i get a tank caked in white crust i use a new razor blade and scape it off carefully,. using a sponge one time a week i clean inside tank around pipes heater etc to stop build up

 

[Liamm]

If you have a glass tank one of those metal dish cleaner things get calcium deposits off really easily

 

[drobbyb]

I just use vinegar and a razor blade to get off hard water stains. Vinegar in contact with your tank water won't hurt (white distilled vinegar). A small amount won't even lower your pH. I know it's a fair amount of work, but it works and won't hurt your glass. Don't try this with acrylic tanks though!

 

[OldMan47]

You should never see a build of chemicals in a properly maintained tank. I hope that is not too negative for you. What I mean by properly maintained is that you remove water every week and replace that plus evaporation losses using tap water. The end result is that your tank water is close to your tap water in the concentration of minerals. If instead you simply add tap water to replace evaporation, you will indeed increase the concentration of minerals. Check it out using you calculator. Evaporation losses have absolutely no mineral content but water additions to your tank do include whatever minerals are present in your tap water. If you run the calculation through a few water changes you will see either the result of chemical builds from tap water or the control of that build by always removing some water before replacing it. I use RO water to top off my tanks but always follow that with a routine water change. The water change is as you are calculating but the RO water has virtually no minerals so it replaces my water with nothing but water. That means that I do not see a mineral build when using it only for a top off.

 

[Primous]

I started to panic a little before reading oldmans post. I live in London and here we have the worst water in all of modern europe. While it's completely clean it's estimated that each glass of water has been used no less than 10 times previously. My ph is 8.something from the tap and my limescale build up in my kettle is so bad that we have to rinse and shake it out before each use. But I don't have hard water stains in my tanks?

This is an interesting topic