Hardening water for guppies

[Jimmy]

I got that mineral deficient PNW water a lot of you guys hear about. If I wanted to do livebearers I know I will need to alter it slightly. I have a bag of GH booster and even a full bag of aragonite sand. I contemplated filling up media bags with aragonite sand for the aquariums I wanted to run with guppies. Would it be likely I need any additional supplementation? I suppose a TDS meter would be helpful to indicate a little more on how much solids I have. Any feedback is appreciated, what would you nerms do?

[gardenman]

For my livebearers, I just add aragonite to either the substrate or canister filter. Two of my tanks (the 10 and 20 gallons) only have sponge filters so they get some aragonite mixed into the substrate.  My 30 and 50 have canister filters so they get the aragonite added to the canisters. I prefer the aragonite as it slowly dissolves and doesn't cause wild swings.

[Jimmy]

On 9/8/2021 at 5:53 AM, gardenman said:

For my livebearers, I just add aragonite to either the substrate or canister filter. Two of my tanks (the 10 and 20 gallons) only have sponge filters so they get some aragonite mixed into the substrate.  My 30 and 50 have canister filters so they get the aragonite added to the canisters. I prefer the aragonite as it slowly dissolves and doesn't cause wild swings.

Is that essentially all you do to your soft water? I had an idea of just throwing a media bag in a few tanks and monitoring the values 

[gardenman]

On 9/8/2021 at 9:04 AM, Jimmy said:

Is that essentially all you do to your soft water? I had an idea of just throwing a media bag in a few tanks and monitoring the values 

My well water has a high GH due to dissolved iron in the water, but essentially no KH, a low pH, and also lots of ammonia. It makes life interesting for fish keeping. I store water in old kitty litter containers with some aragonite in the bottom that helps to condition the water to make it safer for the fish. It raises the pH and KH and the ammonia tends to vanish in the containers. It works for me.

[ARMYVET]

@Jimmy If you can get a tanker truck...I could send you some of my liquid rock that comes out of my well....That would solve the problem for you...🤣

That is the sole reason I am breeding livebearers than trying to fight the water to have soft water stuff.  Its alot easier to add to water...subtracting...bigger problem.

 

[Patrick_G]

I wish I had just added crushed coral to my substrate like Aquarium Coop does. Instead I used Equilibrium. It works perfect, but the careful mixing when doing a water change is tedious. 

[Jimmy]

On 9/8/2021 at 6:19 AM, gardenman said:

My well water has a high GH due to dissolved iron in the water, but essentially no KH, a low pH, and also lots of ammonia. It makes life interesting for fish keeping. I store water in old kitty litter containers with some aragonite in the bottom that helps to condition the water to make it safer for the fish. It raises the pH and KH and the ammonia tends to vanish in the containers. It works for me.

That’s a pretty good solution 

[Jimmy]

On 9/8/2021 at 9:20 AM, Patrick_G said:

I wish I had just added crushed coral to my substrate like Aquarium Coop does. Instead I used Equilibrium. It works perfect, but the careful mixing when doing a water change is tedious. 

I believe it’s the same mix as GH booster. I only used it a few times but I didn’t enjoy how it initially clouded the water

[Jimmy]

On 9/8/2021 at 8:54 AM, ARMYVET said:

@Jimmy If you can get a tanker truck...I could send you some of my liquid rock that comes out of my well....That would solve the problem for you...🤣

That is the sole reason I am breeding livebearers than trying to fight the water to have soft water stuff.  Its alot easier to add to water...subtracting...bigger problem.

 

Funny we always want what we don’t have. Fortunately soft water fish can be kept in water with more mineral content and higher PH generally but not the other way around. My ph and hardness went up a little over 12 hours but not enough. I’m going to monitor it. Fun experiment if anything 

[Patrick_G]

On 9/8/2021 at 8:21 PM, Jimmy said:

I believe it’s the same mix as GH booster. I only used it a few times but I didn’t enjoy how it initially clouded the 

Yeah, that’s a annoying side effect

[Casual aquatics]

I know this might sound absurd.  Firstly like someone mentioned above  if you had a way of transportation lol Indiana is know for its liquid rock haha. But where I was going with this is. What source would you be getting the fish from? 

Ask for a bag of extra water  then put tge fish in a bucket with that water  then setup a drip acclimation process slowly dripping your water into the bucket . And go through a gill osmosis  process! If and when those fish breed I'd like to think they naturally would be OK in that water if they lived from birth. I'm not no expert or scientist anything like that. You asked for an idea I thought of one. But I'm one of those people that don't chase ph. 

 

[Hobbit]

I’ve got super soft water as well. I use crushed oyster shell because I have it already for my chickens. When the KH gets low, I also add calcium carbonate. It does cloud the water and sometimes if I add too much it deposits a little white dust over everything. I just bought some potassium carbonate because @Mmiller2001 keeps hawking it. 😄 

In my platy tubs and tank, I’m also using a significant amount of gravel that is not considered “aquarium safe” because it bubbles under vinegar. Well, what’s the vinegar reacting with? Carbonate, usually calcium carbonate. And at some point it dawned on me—if I’m adding crushed oyster specifically so the calcium carbonate dissolves into the water, why would I go through all this effort to find rocks for my tanks that don’t release calcium carbonate? 😝 Sure, if you want to be able to control things more carefully, you’re going to want to be able to take those rocks out if you need to. But I was just tossing oyster shell over the substrate anyway.

So one option is just to go to the hardware store, get some gravel, wash it off really well, and put that in your tank. But since you have aragonite anyway, I’d probably just stick with that.

[Mmiller2001]

On 9/10/2021 at 8:02 AM, Hobbit said:

I just bought some potassium carbonate because @Mmiller2001 keeps hawking it. 😄 

😁