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Water hardness...
By James from the James department, Section Diaries Posted on Wed Aug 29, 2007 at 01:09:28 PM PST Tags: (all tags)

I'd never really worried about water hardness, until someone mentioned it in relation to another question I'd had... now I'm a bit on the concerned side...

I hadn't really paid much attention to water hardness, I'd simply taken for granted that since I didn't want to mess with perfect water here that I'd just make sure I got tolerant fish. At the time I didn't understand the correlation between water hardness (at least carbonate hardness) and PH. Now I find myself in a bit of a dilemna...

Platies, it seems, prefer more alkaline water.. preferably above 7.5 for good breeding conditions but they'll suck it up as low as 7.0 (numbers drawn from numerous web sites, not my own expertise or lack thereof.) In testing my PH when I set up the aquarium I came up with a 7.4, which I figured was close enough. Today, however, that story changes...

Because one of the responses to my diary entry about flashing platies contained a side note about soft water being a potential cause I went ahead and picked up a hardness test kit. Sure enough, I have soft water. 3 dKH, 7 dGH. Consequently, my PH is now riding at a 7.0... Dange Will Robinson!

So, now I know I need to increase the carbonate hardness, I plan on picking up a couple of shells or natural rocks that should degrade rather slowly since I really want to take a natural approach instead of just dumping in chemical after chemical, the platies are hardy enough fish to learn with... thankfully.

I'm also trying to wrap my mind around the concept that everywhere you look for ideal ranges for specific fish they give you a measurement that says something like 'dKH & dGH should be between X - Y', but they never specify whether that means that each of the two measurements should be in that range or the sum of the two should be in that range or... Bah. I'm assuming that it means each measurement, you want slightly harder water for platies, mollies and other livebearers according to everything I've read... and a sum of 11 for carbonate and general hardness is not, in any way, hard.

So, the questions:

A) Do I need to get my carbonate hardness between 6 and 11 AND my general hardness between 6 and 11, or just the total of the two?

B) Aside from the obvious short term ramifications if my PH drops too much too soon, is there anything wrong with thinking I can put a couple of real shells or other calcium containing rocks in the aquarium to provide a more natural hardening source?

C) Is there any way to gauge ahead of time what kind of effect a given piece of calcium containing material will do over time to your hardness and consequently PH? I don't want to wind up spiking the hardness overnight...

< Very disappointed | The evidence was planted, we just didn't know where... >

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Water hardness... | 8 comments (8 topical, editorial, 0 hidden)

Re: Water hardness... (none / 0) (#8)
by James on Wed Sep 06, 2006 at 11:24:50 AM PST

We're well in to the second week now and PH testing every other day has revealed that my PH is hovering right around 7.5 very reliably so far. We're now approaching the point where most of the additives and dissolving tablets start to lose their punch though, so I'll have to keep on top of it for at least another couple weeks to be sure... but thus far dead coral seems to work wonderfully for maintaining PH.

Rocks and stuff like that are very hard to gage, (none / 0) (#1)
by unclescott on Sun Aug 27, 2006 at 11:17:00 PM PST

when it comes to what they will shed into the water. In most cases I would not worry too much about DH and just monitor pH omce in a while. Usually, but not always the buffers (that KH stuff) come along with the minerals which form the general hardness in freshwater aquariums.

I know they are expensive, but when I completely remade my RO water, I would add a set measure (per 5-gallons or 30-gallons) of a Rift Lake cichlid salt (a brand was the most reasonable and they are out of business.)

SeaChem, maker of pretty sophisticated and expensive products produces "Equilibrium" or something of the sort (sorry, it has been a long day) with which to rebuild RO (reverse osmosis) water. You might be able to add a set amount of that to your water as a supplement.

The need to add stuff to water is what got me to secure 32-gallon (seasoned) trash cans and a 50-gallon food quality barrel (one of those blue things) for seasoning my water. I may operate on a little larger basis than what others would need (and a lot less than some), but the general principle of having a couple of holding containers is good. I graduated from those 5-gallon water cooler containers and 3-gallon camping carboys, though 200+ pounds of those accompanied three tanks which we set up as a part of a "Meet the Creek" thing today, actually yesterday.

all the best!

Dead coral pieces... (none / 0) (#2)
by James on Mon Aug 28, 2006 at 01:17:29 PM PST

I checked with my LFS, they of course went to steer me the chemical and salt route, which I'll do if it comes down to it. When I asked if there was a more long term method of increasing KH they readily pointed me to their rock selection... not just any old rocks though, but dead coral.

When most coral dies it becomes bleached, or naturally whitened, maybe this is only death from certain causes, but the bottom line is that what's left is calcium. Rinsing/soaking for a day or two in a few gallons of dechlorinated water or aquarium water will allow most of the residual marine salts to dilute to the point where that shouldnt' be a problem... at least if what I remember from chemistry is right.

Because the dead coral is almost pure calcium it will contribute directly to the KH instead of just the GH, which is where most of your acid nuetralization happens. Hopefully it will work out well and in terms of 'controlling' it I got pieces in a couple of different sizes, I'm going to start with the smaller one and work my way up to see what I get.

I also picked up a product that says it does what Equilibrium does just in case this doesn't go the way I hope I'll have something on hand with which to resolve the problem. Thanks for the reccomendation.

[ Parent ]

Re: Dead coral pieces... (none / 0) (#3)
by miskairal on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 01:33:04 AM PST

I think you will find that position of the dead coral in the tank might make a difference to it's effect. If placed where it gets a fair amount of flow from a filter it may well release more calcium quicker than if placed in a quieter spot. I don't think you could do too much damage if you placed a small piece in your filter for a while either, just until you got your hardness higher.

I think limestone will do the same thing.

Cheerio
miskairal
--
Repeat after me,
I will read the Immediate Help
[ Parent ]

Re: Dead coral pieces... (none / 0) (#5)
by James on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 07:31:06 AM PST

Oddly enough that thought occurred to me yesterday, just after I placed the coral where it will do the most good for decorum :P I'm trying to figure out where, in each of the three livebearer aquariums we have, that I can place it so it does get more action from the filter but doesn't offend my wife's OCD... I'll get back to you guys in a week when I test the hardness again. Thanks!

[ Parent ]

Re: Dead coral pieces... (none / 0) (#7)
by James on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 07:52:42 PM PST

Well, short term results are in... the coral seems to work.

I haven't changed the water or placed anything else in the aquarium since adding a piece of dead coral to it the other day and the dKH is up by 1 and the PH is up from a 7.1 to a 7.4 or so. Not huge changes, but it's only been two days and I didn't really want huge changes anyway. Much rather have a slower more stable and hopefully longer lasting solution.

I'll post again regarding this next week once things have had a little longer to sort themselves and let you all know whether there was any less temporary change; I'm thinking though that for the dollar I spent on the piece of dead coral even if it bumps your PH by .3-.4 it's worth using instead of chemicals :P

[ Parent ]

Calcium however will do nothing for pH. It (none / 0) (#4)
by unclescott on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 05:40:02 AM PST

will do a lot for hardness. Fortunately calcium carbonate is found in coral and that will make adifference, I think, in terms of pH.

I got just a moment last night between errands to Google Chemstry of coral. Didn't get much time to look at a lot of hits. I was really intrigued by
http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2006-07/jhu-css070606.php

"Reefs are large underwater structures of coral skeletons, made from calcium carbonate secreted by generation after generation of tiny coral polyps over sometimes millions of years of coral growth in the same location. The team showed that corals can switch from using aragonite to another mineral, calcite, in making the calcium carbonate. They make that switch in response to decreases in the ratio of magnesium to calcium in seawater, Ries said. That ratio has changed dramatically over geologic time."

There were other studies listed that talked about how, to a degree, corals (living things after all) changes their chemistry over the course of a day! That probably makes sense in terms of sunlight, depth (even via-a-vis tides), seasons, relative chemistry of the oceans, which does change some short term and geologically has changed. I think of corals as pretty static, inflexible (pardon the pun) creatures. Once again, when a person gets into the topic, there is much more than we ever imagined.

By the way James, people raising rainbowfish fry wish to keep the water alkaline and use coral gravel to buffer it. You wouldn't want to keep Corys and other catfish with that stuff, but it might be cheaper and more effective for what you wish to do.

I should have thought of that before. When you mentioned coral - bingo!

atb!

[ Parent ]

Re: Calcium however will do nothing for pH. It (none / 0) (#6)
by James on Tue Aug 29, 2006 at 07:43:53 AM PST

I stand corrected... That's prolly why they call it Carbonate Hardness and not Calcium Hardness... eh?

[ Parent ]

Water hardness... | 8 comments (8 topical, 0 editorial, 0 hidden)

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