water softening advice please

[Gryphoemia]

About a year ago I moved across the state with my clown loach tank. My new home has much harder water than the old place. The CLs seemed to be doing okay for a long time, although my water seems to be lethal to rainbowfish.

Anyway, last week I suddenly lost one of my large CLs to an apparent bacterial infection- the others seem okay, but I think it's time to do something about the hardness issue. Here are my tank parameters, before a water change:

pH 8.2
kH 8
gH 19
copper - near zero

I can't afford an R/O right now - what other methods can you guys recommend? I'm told that peat and bogwood work for small adjustments, and I've heard very mixed reviews about the AP "water softener pillow."

[Diana]

Having hard water is like having a bucket full of rocks.
Soft water is like a bucket with just a few pebbles in it.
The only way you can make soft water out of hard water is to remove those 'rocks', the minerals in the hard water.

RO is the best way to do this. Distilled water works, too.
With a GH of 19 German degrees of hardness you would need to use about 75% RO + 25% tap to cut it to a better level for the Loaches.

Adding things to the hard water will not remove the minerals.

If the water was not so extreme you could try filtering it through peat moss and see if that helped, but the effect is not much.

Driftwood only helps if your water is already almost perfect, and really does not need any help. Driftwood does not do much to soften the water.

There are things you can add to the filter that might help, but this is not a good idea for a couple of reasons:
1) You want the water to be softer before you add it to the tank. You could use these to pre-treat the water.
2) They are not going to go very far before they are filled up. This will get more expensive than an RO unit.

Rain water can be used in an aquarium under a few conditions:
Clean catch: Non toxic roof, safe storage barrel.
No industry upwind that might add toxins to the air (Rain falls through that air and absorbs toxins)
Reasonably regular enough that you can be sure of always having enough water available for the aquarium's water change needs.

[TrebleClef84]

So far I have found doing frequent water changes with distilled water has really done the trick. Just keep doing tests until it is where you want.

(In other words, I took Diana's advice before and it worked)

[OneWay]

check my thread in my profile, You can try to use the "peat filter" to soften and lower the ph for some of you water. You will have to use the treated water and the Tap water to balance out the Ph though.

Good Luck!

[Diana]

Set up any of several ideas and methods. Test in a bucket for a week or two to see if what you are trying is stable, and can be duplicated.
Remember that the goal for soft water fish is... well... soft water. Very low GH.

In nature this is most often accompanied by low KH and acidic pH.

In all your tests and experiments, keep aiming for the proper GH first.
Then see if the KH is anywhere near the GH.
Then ignore the pH. (well, almost).

Many soft water fish can tolerate GH as high as 9 German degrees of hardness, but the more sensitive fish thrive only when it is under 5 degrees.
A KH reading that is plus or minus a degree or two of the GH reading is a good target, though it really does not have to be that close. However the higher the KH, the more alkaline the pH.

Adding peat moss as a pre-filter can help, but when the water is very hard it is much better to remove a lot of the minerals first, then use the peat to fine tune it. Peat won;t so all the work by itself.