Define soft acidic water

[milalic]

Hi there. I have seen this topic inside some of the posts around here but have not seen it as a separate subject.

How would you define soft acidic water? I have read so much conflicting information on this?. Is it water with a low hardness?water with a low ph? Or water with both low ph and low hardness? is water with 200ppm of hardness considered hard?

Thanks,
Pedro

[badflash]

Acidic means a pH of less that 7.0. Soft is a little fuzzier, but is a function of total disolved solids(TDS). No disolved solids is as soft as it gets. The more disolved solids, the harder the water. How you measure this is something I'm still learning. If you have high TDS it is hard to maintain an acidic pH.

[milalic]

What total hardness would be consider soft?

[frugalfish]

Roughly in ppm...

1. 0-75 soft

2. 75-150 moderate

3. 150-300 hard

4. 300+ very hard


for degrees divide by 17.9

[milalic]

anyone else?

[fishgeek]

table from william wildgoose book

mg/l CaCO3 dH
soft 0-50 3
moderately soft 50-100 3-6
slightly hard 100-200 6-12
moderately hard 200-300 12-18
hard 300-450 18-25
very hard >450 >25


andrew

[Mustafa]

Hi there. I have seen this topic inside some of the posts around here but have not seen it as a separate subject.

How would you define soft acidic water? I have read so much conflicting information on this?. Is it water with a low hardness?water with a low ph? Or water with both low ph and low hardness? is water with 200ppm of hardness considered hard?

Thanks,
Pedro

Acidic water is anything below ph 7 as badflash already said. "Soft" is probably not the right word to use to accurately express the conductivity/TDS (I should change the species descriptions accordingly). Conductivity/TDS is a much better way measuring what ions are in your water. Your GH test kit just tells you about the magnesium and calcium in your water...that's it. Nothing else. That's your 200ppm. I bet you that you have much more than that in your water. Your TDS is probably closer to 300 ppm or even over it. That's quite high. My conductivity out of the tap is 90 microsiemens/cm which translates to a TDS of approximately 45 to 50.

It's really best to get a conductivity meter and toss the GH test kit. I use the Hanna Dist5 conductivity/TDS meter. I have not even glanced at a GH test kit ever since.

[shrimping]

Hi there. I have seen this topic inside some of the posts around here but have not seen it as a separate subject.

How would you define soft acidic water? I have read so much conflicting information on this?. Is it water with a low hardness?water with a low ph? Or water with both low ph and low hardness? is water with 200ppm of hardness considered hard?

Thanks,
Pedro

Acidic water is anything below ph 7 as badflash already said. "Soft" is probably not the right word to use to accurately express the conductivity/TDS (I should change the species descriptions accordingly). Conductivity/TDS is a much better way measuring what ions are in your water. Your GH test kit just tells you about the magnesium and calcium in your water...that's it. Nothing else. That's your 200ppm. I bet you that you have much more than that in your water. Your TDS is probably closer to 300 ppm or even over it. That's quite high. My conductivity out of the tap is 90 microsiemens/cm which translates to a TDS of approximately 45 to 50.

It's really best to get a conductivity meter and toss the GH test kit. I use the Hanna Dist5 conductivity/TDS meter. I have not even glanced at a GH test kit ever since.

Hi Mustafa, what is the the average TDS of your shrimp tanks? Mine are between 400-500ppm, is that way too high?

[Mustafa]

Hi Mustafa, what is the the average TDS of your shrimp tanks?

On average I'd say 50-70 ppm.

Mine are between 400-500ppm, is that way too high?

I would not say "too high" as shrimp have a very wide range, but it's definitely on the higher side. If you shrimp are doing fine and breeding, then don't worry about it. With many species of shrimp ph seems to be the more important issue. If you do have problems keeping and breeding certain shrimp and you have eliminated all other factors that might be causing problems, then you should start looking for ways to decrease your conductivity/TDS.