Soft water

[Andrew_B]

So I moved into my house yesterday and had my fish in rubbermaid containers at the apt with heaters/sponge filters. They were going fine there. I set up tanks at my houst last night so they had a solid 18-20hours running with established filters. More than enough time so I figured they would be good to bring them from the apt to the house. I added my trophs to the tanks. They looked good for a little while then started swimming weird/wobbling. I tested the water. Apparently this side of town has real soft/low pH water. After about 30min in their tanks, I took them back into the bucket water to see if it helps any. Anyone else in the tomball area have stupid soft water? This could be the end of africans for me. Too much of a pain to buffer tanks

[Andrew_B]

Yep, just went to the MUD district to get my water service transferred from the builder to my name. I asked them and they told me we have really soft water here

[mnemenoi]

Might have to switch to SA or riverine africans... not a bad swap though

[Andrew_B]

Eh, that's a pretty bad swap. Not real excited about this if theres no way around the lack of hardness. I use freshwater to pay for my salt addiction. May have to convert to full salt sooner than I wanted. I just had my fish room tiled today and finished designed my racks in preparation for a large boost in troph breeding

[mnemenoi]

Just swap to plecos and geos, or some of the kribs. Does suck that the water is different though. You could add a water softener, it adds minerals and upps tds

[Andrew_B]

I already do epsom salt every water change, Im going to try adding baking soda, and rock salt mixture to try and raise hardness. Crushed coral and limestone scaping can't hurt either. I'll give it a couple weeks to try and get everything situated before I change my fish setup completely

[mnemenoi]

Good luck, I know Sunny was having the same issue recently. He has some decent leads on cheap salts

[SunnyHouTX]

Baking soda will increase pH easily and Epsom salt and regular salt will bump up hardness. I started dosing these as my water supply also turned soft. You'll have to figure out how much baking soda you need to add to get the pH you want by trial and error.

[Lannie]

Here's a calculator for how much baking soda to add to reach a given target value of KH. Some folks say it's best to amp it up only one degree at a time. http://linuxhost.matsp.co.uk/calculator/kh-dosing.php