hard water

Hi, I'm wondering about keeping fish but not sure if my local tap water would be up to scratch. I noticed some forum members are in the same area as me so wondered about peoples first hand experiences? I live near Eastleigh and my water comes from an underground source at Twyford. The water...

A brief history to-date. Won a goldfish in a fair as a child. Put it in one of those round goldfish bowls that every house had back in the eighties. Got a second goldfish at another fair and my stepfather managed to source a sensible sized tank (about 90L). We slapped it on top of the...

Hello all, What are your experiences keeping Boraras in hard water? Did any of you get them to breed? Water hardness is high in my area, around 20 dGH. I know that they are supposed to be kept in water with low hardness, but then again I hear that this is overrated for many fish. For what it's...

Hi guys, I'm from London and I'm planning to pick up a RO unit from Osmostic UK for my German Blue Rams and Discus hardscape only setup. I'm currently in limbo as to whether to pick up the 3 stage freshwater unit without the deionising chamber or whether to go for the full monty 4 stage unit...

hi i purchased aqa soil a while ago to re cycle my tank. it lowered my ph all the way down from 7.6 to 6.2. my water hardness is 258 gh according to thames water. since my aqa soil was able to lower the ph and soften the water and keep it down for 3 months can i the combination of peat and...

What do you guys think? Is it possible to keep discus in 16 degrees KH water? Has anyone done it? If youve kept it in hard water can you say how hard (KH and/or GH). They would probably be UK bred. It would also be a planted tank. Im really looking for some evidence.

Hi everyone. Lets see, in my tank when I fill it up with tap water, after a couple of days it goes cloudy. I live in a very hard water area, Salisbury (wiltshire, UK). I believe the KH might be around 16 or more. So I was wondering if more people suffer from this. Cause I could keep fish in...

We are setting up our very first tank - a Fluval Edge 46 litre (the taller one on an Askoll Pure medium white stand) and need some advice on planting please! We have tap water that is rated as "very hard" 18.062 dh with a reading of 7.6 ph to 8.2 (tested after leaving the water 24 hours in a...

Hi all, I live down in Southampton and have stupidly hard water! I want to try and breed and raise discus and am struggling to get my parameters correct. I have a bare bottom 100l tank which I've setup with an air filter and air stone. I have put in some moss balls from another tank and there...

I know, it's yet another CO2 question but I cannot find the answer! Set up pressurised CO2 about 3 weeks ago and although I am still adjusting bps and switch on and off times it appears to be working fairly well. Normal tank water before CO2 was pH 8.0 or even up to 8.2 - hard water...

I live in a city that has extremely soft tap water (total hardness is usually about 6 dH), but a friend in the country wants to set up a fully planted tank with tap water that has a total hardness of over 40 and a TDS of 440 ppm. I get the impression that the water in the UK is generally hard...

hello UKAPS, I am a new member an have posted a short introduction in the new members section. In short I am in the process of setting up a hi-tech planted community tank in a Fluval Roma 200.But in the past have always done lo-tech tanks. Now I have a question about the hard water in...

I have an Arcadia Arc tank that a week after water change I have lost about 3-5 cm of water due to evaporation and it always leaves lime scale lines making it unpleasant to look at. How do you guys avoid the lime scale left by evaporation of hard tap water ruining the nice look of your tanks...