What is my hardness, and can I keep pea puffers?

So, while reading through the guide for puffers on this forum, I realized that it said Water Hardness : 5-20. What does that mean with a Fluval gh Test kit?
appreciate all help

 

5-20 will be 5-20dgh. Not sure what unit the fluval test uses (ppm, dgh etc) but you will be able to convert it easily.

 

The Fluval GH kit measures in ppm. And 1 degree GH is approximately 18ppm.

So 5 degrees GH is about 90ppm. And 20 degrees GH is about 360ppm. So the range you are looking for in ppm is 90-360.

The number of drops used in the fluval kit would be between 5-18.

 

Thanks for the reply. My hardness is 19.5 drops. so, is there a softener i can use?

 

That hardness may also be fine. But I don't know anything about water parameters for puffers. So I can't comment on that. Someone else will need to chime in on that.

But there is no easy way to soften hard water. What I mean by that is there is no product that you can just add to your water to soften it.

Softening water means removing or diluting minerals. So you can dilute the hard water with softer water, or use a process like reverse osmosis, or distillation.

 

I've only been keeping pea puffers for a few months, but they seem to be doing just fine in my 8.2 pH water with GH around 300.