Breeding aquatic inhabitants, modern people are faced with one very big problem - water hardness. An increased percentage of alkaline earth metal salts has a detrimental effect on representatives of most fish species and other aquarium inhabitants. There are several ways to soften the water in an aquarium without harming its inhabitants.
It is necessary
distilled water, elodea or hornwort, ion exchange resins
Instructions
Step 1
To soften hard tap water in an aquarium, you will need to perform a number of simple steps (in a complex or individually), indicated below. Purchase plants such as elodea or hornwort and plant them in aquarium soil. The result of their vital activity reduces the concentration of calcium and magnesium salts, which leads to a significant softening of the water in the aquarium.
Step 2
Dilute hard tap water with mild distilled water or rainwater. You can buy soft water at pharmacies, pet stores, or poultry markets. Rainwater should be drained and cleaned of debris before being added to the aquarium. It should be diluted depending on the hardness of your water, as a rule, this is 1 liter of hard water per 2 liters of distilled water.
Step 3
Install a reverse osmosis membrane for water treatment in your aquarium. This device is sold at pet stores. This treatment is able to rid (purify) water from all kinds of unnecessary impurities. Also purchase special ion exchange resins from the pet store that are designed to soften the water in the aquarium.
Step 4
Boil the water and cool it before adding it to the aquarium. This will soften the water to some extent, but the degree of softening in this case is not high. This method is unlikely to be suitable in the case of very hard water. It is usually used in combination with other aquarium water softening methods.
Step 5
Buy the chemicals you need to soften your aquarium water from your pet store. Such preparations do not in any way affect the prosperous healthy life of fish, but only remove salts from the water, which make the water hard. The state of the minerals in the water remains the same when these chemicals are used. The environment cleaned in this way is favorable for the life of all aquatic inhabitants.
