How Can I Get My Water To Sit On Neutral

[Better is Betta]

I am frustrated with the water in my tank.....it won't budge. I'm sure this topic has come up from time to time which I have missed. So can some one tell me how they soften hard water so it will sit on neutral without using chemicals.

My tap water is hard to start with. My tank water will not soften no matter how much I fiddle with it.. If I kept cichlids then It would be great I wouldn't have an issue.

I have a log, plants, a medium volcanic rock and some small smooth rocks and a very basic gravel substrate in my tank.. Its just a mix of sand and gravel....the same stuff you use when laying cement foundations, we call it pre mix gravel.


So is it the gravel and rocks that keeps the water hard as well as my tap water. Some people use peat moss under the substrate to soften water but I think that causes problems. Long story but I've tried it without success.

I thought having a log in my tank would bring the water down. I change the water once a week doing half, half and it doesn't affect the ph at all. If I don't change it and let it sit for more a week it gets worse. I've even let the tap water sit for a couple of days before adding it to the tank and that didn't help.

When I did use a chemical to bring the ph down it was very temporary, only lasted for a day or so then back to being high again.
I have an external waterflow filter. I'm just wondering if an air stone might help. I just don't know so any pointers as to what I need to do will be appreciated.

This is my planted tank.

The hardness in my tank water

The hardness in my tap water.

 

[Baccus]

You could try boiling your tap water and then allowing to cool before adding it to your tanks. The boiling should make lime particles float to the top to the water where you can then scoop it out before using the water. Or you could leave the boiled water sit longer and the lime scale will sink, then you can use the top part of the water being sure to not stir up the particles.
Or you could get an inline tap filter that will remove the hardness.
The only other method I can think of would be collect rain water (not from the roof, just but buckets in the middle of the yard during rain) and mix the rain water (should be soft) with your tap water to get a hardness range that suits your fish

 

[raptorrex]

Water just does not want to have its parameters changed.
It’s a concurrent theme, which pops up all the time.
Worse still it’s a scientific fact, not a matter of opinion.
Any tinkering you do with your tap water, will eventually fade.
As the water buffers itself back to “home base”.
Captured rain water is a good way to go. Providing you have enough to supply all your needs, all the time.
Because i have not tried it, i can’t speak for the “boiling” option.
However, it would seem to me, unless you affect both KH and GH (and keep em in balance), eventually this to will buffer its way back.
Using RO and, any, one of the proprietary Mineral mixes.
Is the way to go for long term PH adjustment .

 

[Better is Betta]

Water just does not want to have its parameters changed.
It’s a concurrent theme, which pops up all the time.
Worse still it’s a scientific fact, not a matter of opinion.
Any tinkering you do with your tap water, will eventually fade.
As the water buffers itself back to “home base”.
Captured rain water is a good way to go. Providing you have enough to supply all your needs, all the time.
Because i have not tried it, i can’t speak for the “boiling” option.
However, it would seem to me, unless you affect both KH and GH (and keep em in balance), eventually this to will buffer its way back.
Using RO and, any, one of the proprietary Mineral mixes.
Is the way to go for long term PH adjustment .

Thanks for your input Raptorrex. You mean using Reverse osmosis filter? Is it hard to make one yourself? I'm not advanced enough to understand what is needed to to start one. I guess I could purchase one but what would I need for a small 40 ltr tank. The other options is a product from Seachem a neutral regulator. It contains a phosphate base buffer and helps control calcium and magnesium. Have you heard of it? Would that be a quicker option?

You could try boiling your tap water and then allowing to cool before adding it to your tanks. The boiling should make lime particles float to the top to the water where you can then scoop it out before using the water. Or you could leave the boiled water sit longer and the lime scale will sink, then you can use the top part of the water being sure to not stir up the particles.
Or you could get an inline tap filter that will remove the hardness.
The only other method I can think of would be collect rain water (not from the roof, just but buckets in the middle of the yard during rain) and mix the rain water (should be soft) with your tap water to get a hardness range that suits your fish

Thanks Baccus...sorry I haven't got back to this topic sooner. I did test the ph in the jug and I must admit boiled water did have an improvement,. but still too high. Collecting rain water would be great but you know our weather

I'm hoping for a storm today and have all my buckets out in the yard ready. But its only a short term fix. I may need to do more research into RO or chemical products.

 

[MBOU]

What level is your ph, GH and KH? And why do you need it to be lower?

 

[Better is Betta]

This looks like its going to get really technical and I'm very basic.

I just have an ordinary water testing kit that measures the the ph in my tank. The GH is well above the colour chart that is supplied with the kit, way past the 7.4 off the scale so to speak. I don't know what that measures in technical terms of ppm

The KH I have no idea, I don't add anything to my tap water other than a dechlorinator and I have no idea what is in my tap water other than the usual chlorine and fluoride.
Does this mean I'll have to buy an elaborate testing kit to find out what sort of chemicals are actually causing the high ph?

Why do I need my ph to be lower? If I keep the water at a neutral level it means I don't have to have a specific fish that is suited to only one type of water condition. I can keep a variety of fish together without having them in separate tanks because they can only handle soft or hard water conditions. I've always thought that neutral conditions will suit most fish species.

Is that a bad idea

 

[Essjay]

Hard water is usually alkaline (high pH). Hard water is water with lots of calcium in it. GH is a measure of how much calcium there is in the water. There is also another kind of hardness called carbonate hardness, or KH. If water has a lot of calcium (high GH) it usually also has a lot of carbonate (high KH). Carbonate buffers the water, that means it makes it difficult to change the pH. The more carbonate there is, the harder it is to alter the pH.

Generally speaking, fish that need a low pH also need a low GH, and fish that need a high pH also need a high GH. So it's not just pH you need to alter it's GH as well. This isn't very easy, you need to take calcium out of the water to make it softer. The simplest way to do that is to use RO water as raptorrex says. This is water that has had everything taken out of it. But fish can't live in pure water so you do have to add minerals back in, the amount you add depends on whether you want to end up with soft or hard water.

You can get liquid test kits for both GH and KH. Just to warn you, since you are not very technical, that they work differently from liquid tests for ammonia etc so if you do get one and you need help to use it, just ask.

 

[Better is Betta]

Hard water is usually alkaline (high pH). Hard water is water with lots of calcium in it. GH is a measure of how much calcium there is in the water. There is also another kind of hardness called carbonate hardness, or KH. If water has a lot of calcium (high GH) it usually also has a lot of carbonate (high KH). Carbonate buffers the water, that means it makes it difficult to change the pH. The more carbonate there is, the harder it is to alter the pH.

Generally speaking, fish that need a low pH also need a low GH, and fish that need a high pH also need a high GH. So it's not just pH you need to alter it's GH as well. This isn't very easy, you need to take calcium out of the water to make it softer. The simplest way to do that is to use RO water as raptorrex says. This is water that has had everything taken out of it. But fish can't live in pure water so you do have to add minerals back in, the amount you add depends on whether you want to end up with soft or hard water.

You can get liquid test kits for both GH and KH. Just to warn you, since you are not very technical, that they work differently from liquid tests for ammonia etc so if you do get one and you need help to use it, just ask.

Thank you for that info.....time to get scientific about keeping fish.

Our water supply comes from the mountains that is mainly all granite. I guess the hardness in our water is due to this. So when I find that I have to much calcium or carbonates in my water......other than using an RO filter, is there another option to remove the elements that has caused a high ph. Is there a chemical that can neutralise calcium etc, not necessarily removing it but taming it down so to speak.

 

[MBOU]

Before messing about with your water (always very risky as it might cause the levels to bounce about and kill your fish...) ...

It would be better to establish exactly what fish you are looking at that need softer water!

A lot of places you look up will say fish like Neons etc need really soft water and so on... not necessarily true, they originally came from soft water... but the ones you mostly find in the shops (with exception of Green Neons) have been bred in Singapore and for MA, I know that means our supplier has matched their water parameters to be fairly hard like a lot of the UK. They have been kept in harder water and thrive for several generations...

This goes for a lot of species, few shops have soft water systems and if, like me... you live in a hard water area (ph of 8.5 -9!!) it means all the fish you see on systems are also on hard water... tbh it does rule out some of the L number plecs, some wild caught south american fish like hatchets can be iffy... and a lot of wild caught gouramis (licorice, chocolate, pygmy and croaking gouramis for example will just fade away and not do well)...

But most fish if they are already in hard water... are likely tank bred and that is what they are used to...

So what fish are you thinking of?

 

[Essjay]

Our water supply comes from the mountains that is mainly all granite. I guess the hardness in our water is due to this. So when I find that I have to much calcium or carbonates in my water......other than using an RO filter, is there another option to remove the elements that has caused a high ph. Is there a chemical that can neutralise calcium etc, not necessarily removing it but taming it down so to speak.

When water flows over rocks, some dissolve better than others. Limestone and chalk are the ones that dissolve easiest, and because they are both made from calcium carbonate water that flows over them has a lot of calcium and a lot of carbonate dissolved in it; this kind of water has high pH, high GH and high KH. Granite is a rock that hardly dissolves at all. Usually water from granite areas is quite soft. But it can also have high pH. Do you get limescale build up in a kettle or your shower head? You get a lot of limescale in hard water areas and almost none in soft water areas.

Hardness has more effect on fish than pH. So a fish that 'likes' soft acid water will be happier in soft alkaline water than in hard acid water. My tapwater pH is 7.4 fresh from the tap, and 7.6 on standing, but I also have softish water. I have no problems keeping fish that like soft acid water.
As MBOU said, what fish would you like to keep?


You mentioned your GH being off the top of the scale - did you mean pH? If you did mean GH, what are you using to test it, because liquid testers don't use a colour chart, and I wouldn't trust the reading from a strip.

 

[Better is Betta]

Ok so I'm thinking this all wrong and getting confused with GH and PH. When I test my water with the basic bromothymol blue it indicates a high alkalinity. I always thought that high alkalinity indicates very hard water which is your GH. Anything below the 7 is indicating softer water and lower is acidic.

What I should be doing to get a better understanding of my water is as essjay suggested, go out and buy a KH and GH test kit. Once I have done that I will let you all know exactly whats in my water.

The fish I have now are corys, bettas, tetras, guppies and BN . I tried keeping a pair of rams and they perished and before that I purchased panda corys and the same thing happened with them as well. I do have an amonia and nitrate test kit so toxicity wasn't the cause of the problem. Thats why I thought it must be that my water is too hard and the fish I have now have adapted to it.

 

[Essjay]

Getting a GH and KH tester would definitely give you a better understanding of your water. As I mentioned above, the one I use (API) works differently from other testers. Instead of adding a certain number of drops to a tube of water then comparing the colour to a chart, with GH and KH you add one drop at a time, shake after each drop and keep adding drops till the colour changes. The number of drops that takes is the hardness in German degrees which can be converted to ppm by a simple multiplication.

Rams are quite tricky to keep these days. They are often weak fish when you get them and in addition to a need for soft acid water, they also need a higher temperature than most other fish to do well.

 

[Better is Betta]

Getting a GH and KH tester would definitely give you a better understanding of your water. As I mentioned above, the one I use (API) works differently from other testers. Instead of adding a certain number of drops to a tube of water then comparing the colour to a chart, with GH and KH you add one drop at a time, shake after each drop and keep adding drops till the colour changes. The number of drops that takes is the hardness in German degrees which can be converted to ppm by a simple multiplication.

Rams are quite tricky to keep these days. They are often weak fish when you get them and in addition to a need for soft acid water, they also need a higher temperature than most other fish to do well.

Thanks essjay I did purchase the api test kit and yes very different to the ph test kit. Could you help me out so I can understand what I am doing and know what I'm looking for

Step 1. I fill the tubes with tap water to the appropriate level The instructions sheet says for most tropical fish including cichlids tetras etc GH/KH range is 50-100ppm or do I look at the next one for Swordtails, guppies, mollies etc 100-200ppm.

On the conversion chart the drops required to reach the 89.5 ppm is 5 and for the 107.4 ppm its 6 drops. This is where I've lost it in understanding of what I'm looking for.

I know I sound like a real idiot, but surely there are a lot of people out there that are not familiar with water chemistry.

By raising this topic it can only benefit the ones who just know the simple basics like me.

 

[Essjay]

It can get complicated. I'm lucky to have a rather old degree in chemistry, and a son with a degree in chemistry who worked for a water testing company for several years. He's the one that explained exactly what GH and KH means from a water comany's point of view.

With these testers you fill the tube to the line with water. Then add one drop of reagent, put the lid on, shake and look at the colour. Add another drop, lid, shake and look at the colour. Keep adding drops, and counting them, until the water changes colour. GH will change from orange to green and KH will change from blue to yellow.
It can be tricky judging the colour for the first couple of drops as it is pale. Put the tube on something white, take the lid off and look down through the tube - this makes the colour easier to judge.
If the water is very soft, the tube may be green (GH) or yellow (KH) with the first drop. This means a GH or KH of zero.

Once you know how many drops it takes to make the colour change, the number of drops = the hardness in German degrees. You can convert them to ppm by multiplying the number of drops by 17.9

The GH test will tell you how hard the water is. This is the one to look at when a fish profile says it needs soft or hard water.
The KH test will tell you how much buffer there is in the water. In other words, how much the pH is naturally stabilised.

Then it's question of interpreting the results.
The problem here is that everywhere you look says something different. The API chart seems to be saying that a GH of 6 to 11 german deg (100 to 200ppm) is hard because of the fish it says it's suitable for. But other places say soft is up to 8deg (140ppm).

The best thing to do is do the tests and post the results on here and see what people think.

 

[Better is Betta]

It can get complicated. I'm lucky to have a rather old degree in chemistry, and a son with a degree in chemistry who worked for a water testing company for several years. He's the one that explained exactly what GH and KH means from a water comany's point of view.

With these testers you fill the tube to the line with water. Then add one drop of reagent, put the lid on, shake and look at the colour. Add another drop, lid, shake and look at the colour. Keep adding drops, and counting them, until the water changes colour. GH will change from orange to green and KH will change from blue to yellow.
It can be tricky judging the colour for the first couple of drops as it is pale. Put the tube on something white, take the lid off and look down through the tube - this makes the colour easier to judge.
If the water is very soft, the tube may be green (GH) or yellow (KH) with the first drop. This means a GH or KH of zero.

Once you know how many drops it takes to make the colour change, the number of drops = the hardness in German degrees. You can convert them to ppm by multiplying the number of drops by 17.9

The GH test will tell you how hard the water is. This is the one to look at when a fish profile says it needs soft or hard water.
The KH test will tell you how much buffer there is in the water. In other words, how much the pH is naturally stabilised.

Then it's question of interpreting the results.
The problem here is that everywhere you look says something different. The API chart seems to be saying that a GH of 6 to 11 german deg (100 to 200ppm) is hard because of the fish it says it's suitable for. But other places say soft is up to 8deg (140ppm).

The best thing to do is do the tests and post the results on here and see what people think.

Oh thats great! thank you for that

I will let you know the results.....pics