Water Hardness

[Seandgoode]

Hi everyone, I have recently bought a Gh and Kh test kit and have found my water is really hard, 358 to be exact. Is this going to cause issues when I stock my tank?

 

[nic1]

Depends what you want to stock it with?
Different fish like different conditions,

Name your fish and we will help you.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

General Hardness

0 - 4 dH, 0 - 70 ppm : very soft
4 - 8 dH, 70 - 140 ppm : soft
8 - 12 dH, 140 - 210 ppm : medium hard
12 - 18 dH, 210 - 320 ppm : fairly hard
18 - 30 dH, 320 - 530 ppm : hard
higher : liquid rock (Lake Malawi and Los Angeles, CA)

from http/fins.actwin.com/aquariafaq.html
 
How do you feel about African cichlids? And what test kit did you use since most tend to read in degrees of hardness and we test by adding one drop at a time, keeping count, and when a drop causes the solution to change color, the number of drops it took = the degrees of hardness.

 

[Seandgoode]

As to stocking I hadn't really decided yet, I was going to choose as per the water parameters. Seeing as it's only a 90 litre or 23 Us gal I was going to look at smaller fish like guppy, molly or platy.
I do like the look of cichlids but would o ly be able to have a few and was led to believe they may be aggressive in smaller numbers.

It was tested with the api kit and took 20 drops to change. Assuming I calculated the results correctly it reads 358ppm.

 

[yinyangpete]

As to stocking I hadn't really decided yet, I was going to choose as per the water parameters.

Great approach, IMHO. Always easier to use the water you have, than start down the slippery maintenance slope of constantly fiddling with your water parameters.
 
The livebearers you mentioned would appreciate your hard water.