Spring water strikes again!

[Andrew_B]

If you live in spring/n houston - keep an eye of your tap water before doing a water change. I just filled up both of my new tanks, tossed on some established filters. A few hours later did a water test, close to 0 gH on them both. Tested the water, and it was 0 as well. Tested my main tank afterwards, a little lower than normal, but still around 150ish.

Is gH worth buffering? Should I hold on adding fish? With established gravel and filter, was hoping to get stock in the tank in no time - but this seems like it may be quite a hiccup

Any thoughts?
Thanks

[Andrew_B]

I ran over to a petco about a mile away - they have the same issue right now with 0-25 gH in their tap water as well.
I picked up seachem Flourish. I do not have planted tanks, but it has calcium/magnesium and iron in it, which supposibly helps raise hardness. I was also told something about baking soda? Any ideas?

[nacra99]

What you really want to test is KH.
Carbonate Buffering is what really buffers your pH.
If your kH is greater than 3 or so, it should be ok.

To raise kH, the cheap way is to hang a bag of crushed coral in your tank or your water conditioning barrel or use baking soda (not baking POWDER). Don't raise more than 20ppm at a time.