Wierd pH Issues

Byron

The GH and KH of your tap water will not change (or very. very minimally) in the aquarium unless there is something specifically affecting it. As for instance, calcareous gravel or rock that will harden the water. But aside from this, it will stay much the same. So knowing the tap water GH and KH is all you need at present. And this you should be able to ascertain from the water supply folks, they may have a website with water data. If you find it and can't fathom it, post the link and we can take a look. Sometimes these reports can be difficult to sort out.

pittipuppylove

So, here's the most recent water report I could find on the city website. It's from 2010 and claims to be the most current info (whether or not this is true or not I'm not sure - they don't provide a "last updated " date). And no suprise here, it's all Greek to me.
http://city.waverlyia.com/docs/Water...20-%202010.pdf

Byron

That link is not working, and the choices net assistant give don't work either.

pittipuppylove

Well poo. Sorry about that... Let's try this one:
General Information
Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on "2010 Water Quality Data"

Byron

Not helpful for what we want. They list contaminants, which is obviously important to those drinking the water. But they don't mention hardness because at whatever level this is not a contaminant.

They may be able to tell you directly. Alternatively, your fish store might test the hardness; if you do this, make sure you ask them for the numbers for the GH and KH. Meaningless terms like "it's fine" or "normal" or "hard" are just that, meaningless.

pittipuppylove

Darn, I was afraid of that. Sorry about the wild goose chase! I'll try to contact the city water people and, just in case I don't hear back from them, I'll take a decent sized sample to my LFS when I go home this weekend - I'd trust them on readings more than most of the people at the PetSmart closest to my school.