Soft Water???

[discus_maniac]

What is soft water....how important it's for Discus??
How to test it???

Cheers :)

[sammigold]

If you were going to describe soft water in laymans terms you would say that in soft water your soap will lather up really well and in hard water you would have more trouble getting a good lather! :lol: :lol:

In fish terms there are two type of water hardness to measure...
your general hardness (GH) and your carbonate hardness (KH).. (I am hoping someone else will be able to describe the scientifics of these)

what I do know is that your carbonate hardness is related to keeping your ph stable...

you can buy testing kits at your local aquarium for both GH and KH, within the packets the instructions tell you how to measure and what readings you should be looking for for different types of fish.....
An example is :
Our KH is between 3-4 and our GH is between 4-5... for our discus whereas in our guppie tank our KH is still 3-4 but the GH is around 12 as guppies prefer "harder" water.
Depending on where you live your water hardness can be different eg. Melbourne has fairly soft water straight out of the tap and usually fairly neutral ph... whereas other states/water zones are totally different.

I hope that helps you out until someone else can explain the more scientific side of things... :lol:
cheers sammi

[Ben]

Great explanation Sammi!

General hardness (GH) is primarily the measure of calcium and magnesium ions in the water

Carbonate hardness (KH) is the measure of bicarbonate and carbonate ions in the water.


HTH

Ben