My Tap Water Gh Is 300+ ! Do I Invest In Ro Unit?

[mnemonik23]

Maybe Tetra's GH test kit is wrong, but it shows 300+ GH. I knew my tap water is hard, but this is way very hard.
I have a few questions:

1) Do I invest in RO unit? Maybe like a small one so I can hook it up and use only when need to change/add water for the aquarium.

2) Will it help to remove hardness?

3) If so, which unit would you recommend?

4) Do I need to add any chemicals to the water to restore some minerals after water went trough RO unit?

5) Can high GH slow down bacteria growth? (I've been cycling for 8 days already and ammonia level didn’t go down much yet, though I think I see a tiny, tiny movement in nitrites...)



Please help with answers.
Thanks!

 

[Colin_T]

Many species of bacteria don't do as well in hard water compared to soft water. However, filter bacteria in a new tank take several weeks to develop so just let it run.

R/O water is free of minerals and chemicals and has 0 hardness. If you use half tap water and half R/O water you will get water with about 150ppm GH. That is fine for most fish and will mean you don't have to add anything to increase the GH or KH.

If you keep livebearers, rift lake cichlids or goldfish they will be fine in hard water and you won't have to use R/O. If you keep locally bred fishes you should be fine using straight tap water. If you plan on keeping wild caught fish that naturally occur in soft water, then use R/O water for them.

 

[mnemonik23]

Many species of bacteria don't do as well in hard water compared to soft water. However, filter bacteria in a new tank take several weeks to develop so just let it run.

R/O water is free of minerals and chemicals and has 0 hardness. If you use half tap water and half R/O water you will get water with about 150ppm GH. That is fine for most fish and will mean you don't have to add anything to increase the GH or KH.

If you keep livebearers, rift lake cichlids or goldfish they will be fine in hard water and you won't have to use R/O. If you keep locally bred fishes you should be fine using straight tap water. If you plan on keeping wild caught fish that naturally occur in soft water, then use R/O water for them.

I guess locally bred fishes. So, I should be fine with 300+ GH for my neons, rasboras and corys?

 

[Colin_T]

neons and rasboras usually come from Asia where they are bred in huge numbers. They will tolerate hard water as long as the PH isn't extreme. If the PH is between 6-7.8 they should be fine. If the PH is above 8.0 then it might be an idea to make a bit of R/O water and lower the PH and hardness.
The cories could be locally bred or imported from Asia and will tolerate the same conditions as the other fish.

 

[waterdrop]

re: "5) Can high GH slow down bacteria growth? (I've been cycling for 8 days already and ammonia level didn’t go down much yet, though I think I see a tiny, tiny movement in nitrites...)"

GH is not a statistic that is commonly talked about, worried about or used for actions when you are fishless cycling. [Certainly RO water with 0 GH & KH would inhibit cycling but I've not seen anything written about very high GH.]

KH (aka Carbonate Hardness, aka Temporary Hardness) on the other hand is definately written about and plays a role. The beneficial bacteria are, among other things, lithotrophs ("eaters of rock") and the "rock" they eat is the stuff that KH is measuring. So you need some Carbonate Hardness to the water in order to help grow the beneficial bacteria.

Its good that you bothered to write the extra words with your question.. ("I've been cycling for 8 days..") because therein lies the answer. You just need to give things more time probably. The whole hobby is all about patience and fishless cycling (without mature media in particular) takes the most patience of all!

If you've got a filter that is working and has biomedia, you've got conditioned tap water with 5ppm pure ammonia in there, you've got reasonable pH that is holding up ok, then with time you are bound to see the progression of fishless cycling. You don't even have to do it but if you want to play with trying to optimize things for the bacteria you can hike your temp up to 84F, you can measure your KH and keep it from dropping below 3, you can measure your pH and never let it get down to 6.2 or you can even try to optimize it up at 8 or above, but its not always clear that even these optimaztions will really consistently speed things up for you. But with reasonable care, what you can count on is that time will eventually do the trick.

~~waterdrop~~

 

[mnemonik23]

Thank you guys for your replies! I do not have a problem waiting, especially for a good cause
I just thought that high GH may kill the bacteria (...I'm not good at chemistry...) and that's why I raised an alarm

So, I will be fine with my high GH as long as pH stays between 6.2-7.9, right?


Thanks!

 

[Colin_T]

yep

 

[mnemonik23]

yep

Whoo-hooo! Thanks!