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We would probably need more to go on? What is the substrate? Is it something bought from an aquarium shop or from a builders merchant, or elsewhere? How long has the tank been set up and running? What else is in the tank, rocks etc? There is usually a corellation between TDS and GH so it would be much easier for you to use a TDS meter/pen, cheap and easier, and then just use the GH tester drops occassionaly. Once sorted you can probably use water of 50/50 Tap water and RO/distilled water, that should give you GH 8? What you are doing is right, slowly reducing the GH but will only work properly when you have worked out (and amended) the problem. Simon

Do you have rocks as decoration in the tank? Rocks and gravel substrate are usually the culprit. On rare occasions, those bio filter media rings have been know to raise GH/KH. What you are doing to test, is the right way of doing it.

Cheers Simon. Do the assassins breed like the live bearing ones I’ve got? I’ve seen them on eBay but if they breed quickly I’ll just buy 5 or 10.

They will be fine with anything, aside from other snails of coarse. I'm sure they will help with algae and excess food as well. If I want to get some out I put an algae wafer in the tank and they are on it like a rugby scrum! I have given some to a friend in the past, and he just bought some fancy snails, I said to him, I hope all those assassins I gave you have died then? The next morning he had two empty fancy snail shells in the tank...... Simon

Thanks for the advice Simon. I'll certainly order some of the assassin snails, would they be ok with Malawi Cichlids? I tend to overfeed my Cichlids slightly to keep them in breeding colours and the snails are everywhere. Sonny

So ive recently bought 10 RCS and found out all about gh and kh. My kh was (3) drops and my gh was (22) i decided to buy some distilled water and slowly add it to lower my gh. Each gallon lowers about 2 gh which is great news! But i noticed each day i remeasured my gh it seemed to raise by 1 drop sometimes 2. I am currently testing the theory right now i have substrate in a cup with distilled water. If this is the case what should i do? There’s currently 2 inches of substrate its a 20 gallon tall i don't know what type of substrate it is i forgot. But if it isnt that what else could it be. Also i forgot to mention my tap water tests for (16) gh so obviously something is making it rise in my tank. I also dose flourish weekly and excel once every other day.