FishFolk

Rumor has it that our water is hard. Hmmm.

Thought I'd get an official count from the water company. The info I found on the internet varies abit but generally below 60/70 (ppm)is very soft
70-140 is soft
140-200 is medium
200-350 is hard
350 and up is very hard

Well, my town has 34-40 ppm. The water company folks said it is "medium hard".

Since I'd heard the water was medium hard, I wasn't too worried about adding anything for my cichlids. Now, I know I have to beef it up. 8-12 dH is about 14-200! That's a lot of calcium. Hopefully the sahara sand will take care of it.

I guess I can find a test kit somewhere.

The point of all of this, other than venting, is to remind us all to test or check official water results to keep our fish healthy and happy.

Shawnie

To be honest, I check of course for the ammonia, nitrites & nitrates and never have checked for anything else..hmm seems to have been ok so far..and of course learning about the nitrogen cycle here on fishlore, my fish dont really care about hardness LOL ..not sure if certain fish do tho mine are all great with the other 3 being on target

FishFolk

We never worried about hardness either until I got the cichlids. Of course they had lived for a year and a half in city water, filter and no heater before they came to me. So, it isn't critical to survival. I am hoping to breed so am aiming for optimum (or as close as I can get). Seeing that you have 2 convicts and fry - maybe I'm worrying for naught.
Thanks.

steveangela1

our water was 150 range when the store tested ours (I have the api kit but no hardness test) which they said was great for cichlids.

I wouldn't go on the water companies word imo, I would test it myself (or like I did take it to the store) I was curious on what our tap water was, now I know we don't have ammonia, nitrates, nitrites and our tapwater ph is about 8.0 which is just right for my little buddies....

FishFolk

nThanks. I plam to get a kit, but I'm pretty sure I received good data. I had to wait while the guy ran the report. The three of us (he and supervisor)chatted about fish and stuff while we waited. H pulled up samples for the last year - general and calcium - and compiled/averaged etc. Our ph is good too

Nite

Shawnie

convicts are like rabbits when it comes to breeding..not even sure they would care about ammonia LOL (JK of course) but they dont require much to breed, other than a m/f combo