Water issues

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Brian02

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Hi, Iā€™m trying to understand the water I have in my house and what my best solution is. I had a some Otto catfish which did not survive and then some mollies. I returned the mollies to the store as was concerned about my water and wanted to figure out before went any further. The water in my area is commonly referred to as hard. But my house has a water softener. I have 2 tanks. One Iā€™m trying to cycle and one that has a snail in it. Ammonia, nitrate and nitrite are 0 in both tanks. PH is high in the one Iā€™m trying to cycle (around 8) and KH is 6. But in the other tank the ph is 7.4 and kH is showing as less than 1 (i think). Iā€™ve been testing KH around my house and trying to understand. Can anyone help me understand what I should be measuring, what good levels would be - was hoping to put Cory catfish in the new tank when itā€™s ready.
 
Does the water from the hose go through the softner because mine doesent. Im pretty sure that water softners are bad for fish.
 
The quickest solution for you is to keep only hard water fish.

Find out your water GH and you can decide which are the best fish to keep.
African fish, Live bearer (Guppies, Mollies, Platies) and some Australian fish are suitable for hard water.
 
If the water softener is the type which uses salt, you should not use that for your fish tanks. The salt type of water softener adds sodium to the water and freshwater fish can't cope with a lot of sodium in the water. There should be a bypass tap somewhere; use that and keep hard water fish.

If you want to keep soft water fish, you need to use water that has not been through the water softener and mix it with a source of pure water such as RO water. This will dilute the hardness so that it is safe for soft water fish.
 

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