Best way to soften water?

[JT11]

I am getting ready to setup a 55 gallon tank for SA cichlids and want get the dh below ten. My water is currently about 14 to 15 dh, what do you guys use to soften your water??

 

[rcarbonell]

Got the same prob.. im planning to put discus together with my malaysian aro..

 

[Wolf3101]

I run a 300 GPD RO/DI system for all of our tank water. That seems to do the trick nicely...

 

[DasArab]

Whats the PH of your water? A few pieces of bogwood will help lower it, I had so many pieces of bogwood in my tank the ph was on the floor and the kh/dh unmeasurable that I had to add crushed coral to the filters.

 

[Merbeast]

Bogwood softens water? Interesting. Google, here I come!

 

[donaldastwood]

Another way that i used was to run Peat through your filter. But you have to be sure that you dont have carbon in your filter or it counteracts the peat. I have south american cichlids and they are doing great with the Peat filtered water.

 

[JT11]

Have any of you heard of using distilled water to lower it?

 

[Wolf3101]

that works about the same as RO/DI but not as well.

You can always buy water from one of the filtered water outlets...most of them use huge RO/DI systems and usually cost about .29 a gallon or so.

 

[cichlid savage]

You could beat it with a hammer

 

[JT11]

Good one! and thanks for the tip wolf3101