water hardness

Question
QUESTION: I am new to the fish community..lol and my water hardness in my tank is VERY high. I can't seem to find a product that will help with this as there are only two tiny fish places in town and they don't have what i need. I am trying petsmart.com and can't find a product that just adjusts the hardness there either. I plan to get my ph decreaser and increaser and ammonia remover shipped to me but can't find a product for the hardness. Any recommendations for hardness adjustments for my tank?

ANSWER: Have you tried aquabid.com? I don't really use chemicals....instead I use drift wood to naturally do the job.

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QUESTION: you can use driftwood???? where would you find it and how exactly does that work?

Answer
Well....your local pet shop should carry it....if not you could order it on line.

It's tannic acid. It naturally lowers the waters PH if you use enough of it.

Like for African Cichlids the opposite would be decorative or crushed coral.

People use tannic acid on all sorts of fish. In South East Asia they use Indian almond leaves.....Black Water Extract (made by Tetra) uses Oak leaves. You could try purchasing some and it'll do the same thing. The only thing is that the drift wood does the job for a lot longer....maybe needing to replace/add new wood every 1-2 years depending on your water change schedule