water hardness
- Thread starter aquariumguy2300
- Start date
Increasing hardness is easy - you just add some hard stuff. Decreasing hardness is more tricky, you have to remove it from the water
Make sure you dont change the water hardness and pH suddenly, that will upset and maybe kill your fish.
Adding some crushed coral, coral sand or even crushed seashells is a good way as it will increase the hardness in a fairly slow manner as the lime slowly dissolves into the water.
You can also make it harder instantly my mixing in some baking soda, epsom salts and plain sea salt. About 1 teaspon of each per 5 gal of water and you should have a pH around 8 and water hardness suitable for Rift Lake cichlids. DONT just do this to your tank in one go though, mix some into each water change so the water parameters change slowly.
You can also buy a special mix of salts to replicate the African lake water, but the main ingredients are the same as the home-made list above
Cheers
Ian
Make sure you dont change the water hardness and pH suddenly, that will upset and maybe kill your fish.
Adding some crushed coral, coral sand or even crushed seashells is a good way as it will increase the hardness in a fairly slow manner as the lime slowly dissolves into the water.
You can also make it harder instantly my mixing in some baking soda, epsom salts and plain sea salt. About 1 teaspon of each per 5 gal of water and you should have a pH around 8 and water hardness suitable for Rift Lake cichlids. DONT just do this to your tank in one go though, mix some into each water change so the water parameters change slowly.
You can also buy a special mix of salts to replicate the African lake water, but the main ingredients are the same as the home-made list above
Cheers
Ian