Ok... can't fix me, but maybe help my fish... GH education part 2

[CaptainBarnicles]

RO is probably the way to go, just a hassle getting the levels right and it's a bit of a pickle if you have to do an emergency water change for whatever reason. You'd perhaps have to make sure you've made a load in advance and store it...which is another pain in the (water) butt

 

[Magnum Man]

I have a bunch of 30 gallon food grade plastic barrels ( sorry, from America & I'm familiar, but not fluent with the metric conversions ) one of those sound like a good storage for RO water, just need to add a pump to the barrel, then to blend with my tap water or add back minerals would be the next question

 

[Byron]

Whatever you do must depend solely on the requirements of the intended fish species. Fussing with water parameters is not usually easy, quite the reverse. As you have seen...lowering the GH did not affect the KH or pH. And adding substances including the Fluval peat granules is not likely to either, because the initial pH of the water is high (8 something) and the KH is high (300 ppm) and the latter buffers the pH. You will not get the pH down unless you reduce the KH as well, and the only safe effective way to do this is diluting the water with some for of pure water, be it RO, distilled, or rainwater (if otherwise safe). The GH has to be factored in to this too, as the water run through the softener is not safe for fish, so you start with straight non-filtered/softened water and dilute accordingly.

This has issues. Water for all water changes must be prepared to the same parameters outside the tank with fish. An emergency water change becomes very difficult when you have to do this. RO units are not inexpensive.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

HI- I hate to be the one to tell you this, but you need to do a bit more learning about water chemistry.

Carbonate (not cabonite) hardness is measured using the KH test kit. Alkalinity refers to carbonate hardness.

Buffering Capacity (KH, Alkalinity)​

Buffering capacity refers to water's ability to keep the pH stable as acids or bases are added. pH and buffering capacity are intertwined with one another; although one might think that adding equal volumes of an acid and neutral water would result in a pH halfway in between, this rarely happens in practice. If the water has sufficient buffering capacity, the buffering capacity can absorb and neutralize the added acid without significantly changing the pH. Conceptually, a buffer acts somewhat like a large sponge. As more acid is added, the ``sponge'' absorbs the acid without changing the pH much. The ``sponge's'' capacity is limited however; once the buffering capacity is used up, the pH changes more rapidly as acids are added.........

In freshwater aquariums, most of water's buffering capacity is due to carbonates and bicarbonates. Thus, the terms ``carbonate hardness'' (KH), ``alkalinity'' and ``buffering capacity'' are used interchangeably. Although technically not the same things, they are equivalent in practice in the context of fishkeeping. Note: the term ``alkalinity'' should not be confused with the term ``alkaline''. Alkalinity refers to buffering, while alkaline refers to a solution that is a base (i.e., pH > 7).

A water softener changes the water chemistry depending upon how the softener works. So you need to let us know how yours works- does it use salt or something else?

If you go here and do some reading, you will end up with a lot more knowledge on this stuff: https://fins.actwin.com/mirror/begin-chem.html The quote above is from this link.

 

[Magnum Man]

thanks... I've read most of that from other sources... but I printed the article in the link for reference