Hard water

[Fish_FinAddict]

Hello all, I live in South Texas and the water is rather hard. The water straight from the tap is Ph 7.0, Kh 190, Gh > 200. Other than Ciclids, what kind of fish can live well with those parameters? And is there anything I can add to the water to lower the Kh and Gh? I would like to keep Discus, and I know there are additives to drop the PH to 6.0 - 6.5 but will the Kh and Gh affect the Discus?

[mistakes r crucial]

Welcome to the forum Fish Fin.

To keep Discus in a Ph of 7 is fine. Quite a few people in your neck of the woods breed Discus in a Ph higher than yours. However, your water is pretty hard so to have any success with Discus you would need to lower it. I doubt peat will help you make it softer as it won't work in water that is very hard to start with but try it and see if it makes a difference. Just take a bucket of water and throw in a handful of peat and test it a couple of days later. You'll get a better result if you keep the water moving so put an airstone in the bucket. The peat should be pure and not contain any ferts etc, Sunshine Peat is very good, it's a Canadian company so I'm sure you would be able to buy it over there. It's also very inexpensive. There are commercial products that will soften your water, I have never used them but I think Black Water Extract is one of them, just check it out at your LFS.

Alternatively you could buy an RO unit which will most certainly get rid of your hardness issues but they are quite expensive and waste alot of water. You should never just use pure RO water and it takes a bit of practise getting the mix right.

As far as fish are concerned I think there are plenty of catfish that like harder water params, planetcatfish.com would be the place to find out more. Most of the fish from the African Rift Lakes also require harder water. Hopefully someone here can give you a few more ideas on which fish are suitable.
Cheers
MAC