hard water effects?

[sergo]

what are some signs of the effects of long term exposure to hard water in fish? i think i may have a problem brewing in my 55. my ph runs 7.0-7.2 my gh per api test kit is 13 and has been there for a little while now. my bloodfins, sepaes, and a couple of my honey gouramis have red showing either through or on (hard to tell for sure) their gill covers that make me think they may be inflamed or something. i'm not sure but i want to make sure they are ok. they seem to acting ok, just their gill covers bother me right now. any ideas?

[cocoa_pleco]

I used to think that too. I went and talked to a pro about it, and he said that the fish get really red gills in clean water from high iron content, nothing to worry about

[Rue]

...your pH is fine for most fish...and only specialized soft-water fish suffer in hard water...they end up with a mineral overload and may end up with mineral deposits in their kidneys and whereever...

[sergo]

thanks for the input, i did start looking closer at pix of fish online and noticed that they too had the type of coloration so i think all is ok. i bet the reason why i noticed it is because i changed out my bulbs and the new ones are on a differnt spectrum than the others so things looked different.

[nanaglen2001]

13 gh, boy I whish I had THAT soft water:hmm3grin2orange:

[Sasquatch]

A gh of 13 equate to what? Is it mg/L of salt? Carbonate? Hardness is one of those parameters that is liable to confusion.

For example, we have "moderatly hard" water and our gh runs around 120. I've seen fish that are prefectly healthy in lakes with a hardness of around 650!

In any case, hardness isn't going to affect much in your fish. They may act a little weird when you first introduce them if the difference is really big, but within a few days they'll acclimate and will be fine.