Poll gH kH Does it matter? Do you test

[nfored]

So I am wounding if these are really important for the general hobbyist?

For the majority of fish keepers, excluding the more exotic does it need to be matched to the fish profile? or will they adjust like they do with pH? Also does the fish profile still have use since most are bread in captivity outside of their natural water parameters.

 

[Pyramid_Party]

My water is kinda hard, ive kept a range of fish, even ones that needed softer water. But GH would be an issue on more sensitive fish. KH I understand it has an indicator on how stable your PH is, correct? I guess higher the better. Mine is pretty high. Ive tested it a few times but dont care about it all that much.

 

[nfored]

Yes Gh, General Hardness is what people talk about if you have hard or softwater, and kH is the tanks buffering ability, how much shock it can have without lowering pH.

I tend to think kH is more important then gH, but I never measured either, when I was testing my pH it always stayed the same. Well this is not 100% true if I did a large water change I would have a jump in pH because I didn't let the water gas off before changing; but that was back to the normal withing 24 hours.

 

[screaminleeman]

Captive breeding can only change a fish natural water parameter so much. It is important to test and maintain for happy life rather then just survival.

 

[NilePufferFanatic]

I have seen neon tetras in really hard water loose all their bright colors.

 

[tcarswell]

Its not really anything I can control. I have test strips but they pretty much get maxed out.... Brick hard water... PH is about 8.3

 

[brianp]

To be honest, I have never bothered to test the GH or KH of my municipal water. To some extent, this would be futile because ACWD uses different sources of water throughout the year...depending upon which source is most plentiful. So, the GH and KH would be expected to change throughout the year. Also, my Dats are relatively hardy and adaptable and I don't think that even substantial shifts in either parameter is likely to affect them. If you substract KH from GH, you are left with essentially calcium and magnesium, which have no buffering capacity and hence, do not affect the pH. The KH (carbonate and bicarbonate) is really the business end of buffering and pH stability. Again, I have never really seen any reason to test for the KH because any shortcoming (relative to the amount of biological activity in my tanks) either disappears during routine tank maintenanc(wcs) or can be easily compensated for empirically, simply by adding sodium bicarbonate (baking soda). If the KH is low, water changes will resupplement the buffering capacity and this issue becomes moot. If the frequency of wcs required to prevent a pH drop should become excessive, then I simply add some sodium bicarbonate to my change water and this extends the buffering capacity between wcs. Simple. IMO...dealing with excessive hardness is a far more difficult and expensive issue than "soft" water.

 

[nfored]

. IMO...dealing with excessive hardness is a far more difficult and expensive issue than "soft" water.

I couldn't agree more, you can spend a one time fee on buying limestone or other such products to increase your hardness. How silly I was when I was spending tons of money on R/O Filters and wasted water, only to have to spend more money to put R/O right back into the water to give it some substance.

So the general feeling I am getting so far, is that your fish would prefer the corrected water, but the work required might not be cost effective. The other concern I always have about altering waters properties, is that they are not the natural state; they can fluctuate easier. For example if you always use just tap, then the fluctuation will only be if the Water company changes something, if you alter the water it fluctuates over time and by the amount of additives you use.

 

[KaiserSousay]

Stability over any altered water parameter is my choice. The less I alter my tap water, the better for my fish. Dechlorinator is all the, outside of tap, addition to my water.
I keep Africans. They are African in name only. The closest they have been to the Rift lakes is when the National Geographic channel had a special on the TV.
If anyone believes the fish farmers are out micro managing their water to emulate the species “mother” water parameters, well, I still have a Yugo for sale.(low miles, fair condition)
The more you muck with the tap water, the greater the chance for error.

 

[vfc]

My tap water is very hard and alkaline. For the past few years I have only been keeping African Cichlids because of it. They do so well in my tap water that I have to constantly take fish back to the LFS to keep my population under control.

I just removed the African Cichlids from a 75G and stocked it with fish that prefer soft/acidity water (Angels, Red Hook Silver Dollars, Congo Tetras, Blood Parrot, Red Tail shark, etc). So far so good. Time will tell if they thrive. If all goes well, I'll try once again with Blue Rams and Neons.