6 comments to “How do I make my freshwater aquarium water harder?”

1. Sunday P wrote:
   22. March 2008 at 10:31 am :

   Go slowly when making water harder. You can add buffering salts to bring it up. You may have to go to an aquarium specialty store not just Petsmart. Its likely out of their knowledge range. Kent Marine products work for me, I use them to buff up reverse osmosis water which is completely void of any minerals and is totally soft.
   Dolamite in the filter can also work. Avoid Quick Lime, just plain dolamite, you can get it at Home Depot or Lowes in the garden section. Good luck.

2. greg x wrote:
   23. March 2008 at 1:43 pm :

   your ph is not really that bad.
   I say theres no real reason to change your ph unless your trying to breed your fish.
   if that is the case you can buy ph up from just about any pet store.

3. Carl S wrote:
   24. March 2008 at 5:59 pm :

   Dolomite or aragonites are good (as already suggested). Do not use lime or Plaster of Paris as these are not balanced and due not contain important elements in the proper ratio (or at all!).

   My preferred method are Wonder Shells as these dissolve at the correct ratio as per necessary elements, especially calcium (aragonite and dolomite are much less responsive).

   For MUCH more about this subject, please read this very good article about Calcium, Hardness, electrolytes, Ect.:

   I will also note that calcium is important for ALL fish, not just livebearers.
   Again please read the above article which deals with and gives resource links to other references about the importance of a balanced mineral approach, not just Sodium Bicarbonate (Baking Soda) or Magnesium Sulfate (Epsom salts) which are incomplete as to healthy water chemistry

   :~) C

4. Patrick wrote:
   25. March 2008 at 5:53 am :

   I don’t know what type of livebearers you have though most of them have been bred for so many generations in a wide variety of water that your water softness probably isn’t your problem though if these are wild caught of one of the more diffilcult breeds the below comments should help.

   Make the substrate crushed coral or use a wet dry filter with drip plates of crushed coral. (You could try adding more to your filter as well because the crushed coral will help biological filtration as well.) Add a commercial buffering product, I know Kent has some and I’m sure there are a lot of others or use the recipe below for Rift Lake cichlids though it should work well for Central American Livebearers as well. You can use Dolomite instead of Crushed Coral though I’ve always used crushed coral and I’m very happy with it.

   For every 5 US Gallons of water, add 1-tablespoon Epsom salt, 1-teaspoon baking soda, and 1-teaspoon marine salt. This recipe will raise RO water of 6.6 ph, 1 GH & 1 KH to 7.6 ph, 32 GH & 8 KH. Remember to do this for all water changes. Also remember to top off the aquarium water prior to doing a water change because as your aquarium water evaporates the minerals stay in there. I also recommend smaller more frequent water changes when you’re adjusting the water parameters away from your current tap water.

5. vort3xyz wrote:
   27. March 2008 at 1:23 pm :

   For carbonate hardness (ph buffering), use Seachem Malwai Buffer or Baking Soda.

   For General hardness (extra minerals), just use epson salts from the pharmacy.

6. lizzie_gurl213 wrote:
   29. March 2008 at 6:04 am :

   if you buy bottled spring water and use that, it helps a lot