Help!

[Katie03264]

What could possibly turn near-perfect water when it comes out of the tap to super-hard water in the tank? I've never seen it before...the water is as close to perfect as possible coming out of the tap but when we test the tank itself it's as hard as it gets. I'm so confused....

 

[eaglesaquarium]

What's 'perfect'?
 
 
Can you post your water stats from the tap and from the tank?
 
 
And can you post ANYTHING that is in the tank... many times additives like decor can actually affect water chemistry?

 

[Katie03264]

We only have fake plants in the tank, a lava rock, glass "T" & a couple tiki things (typical aquarium decorations). Only a single fake plant is new, everything else has been in there more than a year. Below is a list I copy/pasted from the other forum I tried (& got no replies) of the fish in the tank. It's just a basic community tank & no fish are new. I'll go retest & try to get exact numbers.
 
The hard water thing is most pressing (& perplexing) issue so ANY help is seriously appreciated. If it helps at all (or matters), my tank includes:
1 medium pleco, 1 bushynose pleco, 1 blue crawfish, 1 ropefish, 3 roseline sharks, 1 angel fish, 2 emperor tetras, 2 gouramis, 2 platys, 1 molly, a couple others & 1 remaining glofish (the others became lunch-possibly the stupidest move I've made to put them in w/the crawfish! 

) in a 55gal. Excellent aeration. Nobody else is sick & nobody is new. In fact, nothing is new except ONE fake plant, washed before it was put in & I've never seen a fake plant cause hard water...help please! 

Read more: http/www.tropicalfishkeeping.com/freshwater-tropical-fish/loss-could-really-use-some-help-332194/#ixzz2qOjo6ga7

From actual tap:
MAYBE 20 Nitrate
0 nitrite
6.5pH (fresh)
0 carbonate
About 30 (maybe little less) General Hardness
 
From Tank itself:
200 Nitrate
0 nitrite
6.5pH
0 carbonate
180 General Hardness
 
WTF?!! lol

I'm aware the nitrates are high, we're working on that, long story short, I know why they're high & we'll get that under control but the hard water thing...I just don't understand how it can be THAT off!

 

[fluttermoth]

There's obviously something in your tank that's dissolving into the water and raising the hardness.
 
However, as the nitrate level in the tank is so much higher than what's in your tap water, I suspect that your water change regimen isn't up to scratch; your tank is very heavily stocked.
 
If you gradually increase the frequency and size of your water changes (how much and how often are they at the moment?) your nitrate level will go down and you might find the excessive hardness ceases to be such a problem as well.
 
You must do this gradually though, as the fish will have become accustomed to those water parameters and too large a change will shock them.

 

[Katie03264]

Yes, I know about the water changes & such. We were doing about a 20-30% change every week but had some personal issues that took us away for awhile & obviously...the person we put in charge did not keep up w/it. If we lose a couple in the meantime it is what it is but we know how to get that back under control..I can't fix the hardness if I can't figure out what's causing it & that seems to be the biggest issue right now.

 

[fluttermoth]

Okay, that's great about the water changes and the nitrate
 
The most common culprit of excess hardness is substrate; especially gravel.
 
I would fill two jars with tap water and add some of your substrate to one of them. Leave the jars for a couple of days, then test both for hardness; then you can see if the substrate one is a lot higher.
 
I see you have some lava rock in the tank; that might also be worth testing, as some of those sorts of rocks can affect hardness as well.

 

[Katie03264]

PERFECT! I'll do that right now, thank you so much..I had no idea where to start looking since nothing is new really but..the gravel in there is super old..perhaps it's time for new stuff / 
Will do the lava rock too.
Thanks again!

 

[fluttermoth]

You're very welcome; do let us know how things go

 

[eaglesaquarium]

My guess is that during your period of not doing the water changes, the person in charge of the tank merely was topping up the water.  Water evaporates, but the TDS stay behind... so without changing the water and just topping it up every so often, you kept adding TDS to the tank (or had it added on your behalf).   The result is the water in the tank becomes increasingly hard.
 
 
Flutter explained the process, but essentially, this is a tank dealing with "Old Tank Syndrome".