I want to get some bolivian rams but my water is too hard and they prefer soft. Any tips or tricks to lower GH?
Hard water... Any tips on how to soften it?
- Thread starter MissMaddylyn
- Start date
peatmoss will lower the hardness naturally and make your water more acidic. as long as if you dont mind the tannin stained water.
Your fish will rather have water thats constant and stable! They will adjust to the params but re-adjusting causes more stress then hard water to begin with. Peat moss works slow, api soft water pillows are effective but pricey!
#1 S. Vettel
#1 S. Vettel
I have sponge filters, so the pillow thing is out. Someone at the lfs suggested aquarium salt?
Ther only reason I want to soften it is so I can keep my rams healthy and happy.
If the rams were spawned in your area, they are probably accustomed to hard water.
F1Vet gave you good advice, because trying to constantly fool with water chemistrycreating unstable or fluctuating conditions can have negative effects, and do just the opposite of make your fish healthy.
F1Vet gave you good advice, because trying to constantly fool with water chemistrycreating unstable or fluctuating conditions can have negative effects, and do just the opposite of make your fish healthy.
Trying to harden soft water is much easier than softening hard water. Peat moss and drift wood (tannin acid as a result) can be added all day long but in most cases won't budge hard water, in soft water it is a different story.
If your keeping rams in hard water (just the same as discuss) the biggest thing you can do is crystal clear water (not visual clarity but very very low disolved organics via large water changes) and a high temp. I've kept rams at 84 degrees in hard water and they did great, they would spawn on a regular basis. I agree with duanes as well.
