Hardness

Question
I live in an area with hard water when I test the water with the water testing kits it reads 300 and it is high.  I have a 125 gallon with young peacock bass in them.  What can I do to lower my water hardness?  I know water hardness is dissolved ions and metals in the water can I use chemicals that pet stores sell that says the water conditioner Stress Coat that API sells says detoxifies heavy metals.  I didn't buy this yet but TetraAqua AquaSafe Water Conditioner says removes heavy metals or is this still the same thing as API Stress Coat.  http://www.petco.com/product/105872/TetraAqua-AquaSafe-Water-Conditioner.aspx?Co...

Answer
Hi Thomas,
  Hardness is not about heavy metals.  Heavy metals are things like iron and lead that can poison your fish.  The ions that typically cause water to be "hard" are calcium and magnesium.  You cannot just buy some liquid in a bottle and add it to hard water to make it soft.  

 The typical way people deal with having very hard water is to keep fish that like hard water, such as East African cichlids -- they love hard water.  If you want to keep softer water fish, then the best way to get that is to use a reverse osmosis unit. Basically it removes the ions.
Unfortunately such units are not cheap and the resin that they use needs to be recharged periodically (the frequency depends on how hard your water is).  

-- Ron C.
  rcoleman@cichlidresearch.com
  Cichlid Research Home Page <http://cichlidresearch.com>