# Is my water soft, medium, or hard?



## ontariobetta (Mar 13, 2006)

Here are my readings:
GH= 7
KH= 7
PH= 7.6 (my tester only goes up to 7.6, so i dunno if its higher or not)
TDS= 330

Some sites say 'that is hard water' others say 'thats soft'. Naturally I'm confused So what is it? Just curious....


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## chompy (Mar 24, 2006)

You have very hard water! Its the same downtown... doesn't our water come from underground. Anything that comes from underground will be hard.


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## ontariobetta (Mar 13, 2006)

Dang, that sucks. No wonder my fry grow slow...


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## Ciddian (Mar 15, 2006)

Mine was 8.5 ph ... .. Still figuring out if thats the norm, or if my tester is weird.. lol

And thats with lots of drift wood in the tanks too.. ??


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## Westender (Mar 24, 2006)

It's pretty hard, but it's not liquid rock. I'm not sure where Toronto draws its water from, but just because it comes from underground doesn't mean that it will be hard. Limestone aquifer water is hard and basic. Montreal has lovely water. You can breed anything in it.

sigh.

Still, a decent RO filter will let you breed just about anything here too.


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## ontariobetta (Mar 13, 2006)

Welll, then i'm moving!


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## Westender (Mar 24, 2006)

Yeah. A friend of mine can breed the rarest of apistos in tapwater there. However, I grew up with well water, where the hardness went right off the scale. It was brilliant for African cichlids, but killed most other fish.


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## kbrumund (Mar 19, 2006)

Toronto gets its tapwater from Lake Ontario. Most of the GTA does.

...karl


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## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

Westender said:


> Yeah. A friend of mine can breed the rarest of apistos in tapwater there.


Interesting. Gary Elson, who hails from Montreal, uses RO water, and before that rainwater, and melted snow to breed apistos. He is considered a bit of an authority on them, and gives talks on them. He did say that some species can be bred in tapwater, and others can't. Rarity, of course would not be a factor, but rather the origin of the individual species, as they come from a wide variety of habitats.
I was under the impression, that Lake Ontario water was considered medium hard, and suitable for almost any fish.


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## Pablo (Mar 27, 2006)

ontariobetta said:


> Here are my readings:
> GH= 7
> KH= 7
> PH= 7.6 (my tester only goes up to 7.6, so i dunno if its higher or not)
> ...


Hi. No its not hard and its not soft. It's intermediate. "HARD" water would be something with a GH over 10, and even then its just starting to be hard. 
"VERY HARD" is over a GH of 30 (for MOST people)

Now obviously this is going to change depending on who you ask...

Consider that many south american cichlids come from a GH of about 5 or 6 so you really aren't that far off at 7.

A kH of 7 while somewhat high really isn't a big deal. On the upshot it will keep your pH stable- which is great, unless you were looking to drop your pH in which case its not great...

Toronto tap right now (according to the guy I called @ city of toronto water 3 days ago) is at 7.8 out of the plant at VP and QUEEN.

Toronto tap, typically, has a kH of about 3 or 4 and a gH of almost 30- so you're softening your water somehow- and something is leaching a buffer into your water (Im saying this all assuming you dont purposely tamper with your parameters).

Do you have anything that could leach caco3 (calcium carbonate) such as Aragonite, Pegmatite, any kind of dusty softer rocks?

Generally, anyways, your water is fine for almost anything.

Unless you want rare apistos or something you can do a lot with that water. For example, you could easily breed angels or bolivian rams in your water (assuming those are the correct readings).

So in short IMO you have "intermediately hard" water. My GH is about 4-5 and I consider my water on the harder end of soft.

Are your fish happy? Cool. Don't become a nerd like me its not worth it


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## Pablo (Mar 27, 2006)

BillD said:


> Interesting. Gary Elson, who hails from Montreal, uses RO water, and before that rainwater, and melted snow to breed apistos. He is considered a bit of an authority on them, and gives talks on them. He did say that some species can be bred in tapwater, and others can't. Rarity, of course would not be a factor, but rather the origin of the individual species, as they come from a wide variety of habitats.
> I was under the impression, that Lake Ontario water was considered medium hard, and suitable for almost any fish.


You were under the wrong impression (I was under a similar one until last winter)

Lake Ontario is Limestone. Very hard. Low kH though...


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## MT-ED (Apr 4, 2006)

Local tap here is usually at 7.6 pH.....pretty consistant.

Martin.


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## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

Pablo said:


> You were under the wrong impression (I was under a similar one until last winter)
> 
> Lake Ontario is Limestone. Very hard. Low kH though...


Limestone would contribute to a high kH.


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## Pablo (Mar 27, 2006)

BillD said:


> Limestone would contribute to a high kH.


Not necessarily.

Im pretty sure it's limestone. I could be wrong.

As far as what I know about limestone it has a much higher impact on "gH" which is a term I dislike.. I should say it has a higher impact on TDS than it does on kH- as far as I know- if you want to argue the chemical composition of limestone and why it would or would not present buffering qualities Im all for it it might be fun


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## BillD (Jun 5, 2006)

Since limestone is primarily calcite, which is calcium carbonate, it stands to reason, that the KH would be affected by limestone, since it is a measure of carbonate hardness. Source for the makeup of limestone, is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limestone. TDS would also be affected. Limestone comes in various forms with varying degrees of solubility. There is limestone in Lake Ontario, as the cement plant near Bowmanville takes limestone from the lake.


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