Water hardness

What is water hardness?

Hardness is related to alkalinity as they both measure calcium carbonate content. Hardness also measures other metals in the water that do not necessarily neutralize acid.

Why is water hardness important?

It is one of the most common elements of testing water quality. Calcium in particular is a very important part of many of the biological processes in fish.

What does a measurement mean?

Ever washed your hands in hard water? Did you notice that with hard water you need to use more soap? So you can imagine how having more dissolved minerals in the water may affect the fish living there. Find out what species live in your body of water and what their ideal hardness is. This way you can track how hardness trends impacts your fishy friends.

Water Rangers protocol

For this test we use Taylor Pool and Spa Test Strips. Find out why we use this brand. Find out how it works with a test along!

Pro-Tip: If the colour on the test strip appears in the middle of two colours on the bottle, you can record the absolute middle (for example, if the colour is somewhere between 7.2 and 7.8 the recorded have a value of 7.5).

Contributing to the community!

Water Rangers is citizen-scientist led. So, if you have any questions, ideas, or notice any errors related to our tests, please tell us!