New Tank Parameters

Id definately be looking to stock fish preferring your local water parameters going forwards as I don't believe any of your current stock have a violent dislike for softer conditions so should not be unduly harmed by the change in conditions .  From what Ive read I'd certainly recommend doing all you can to avoid the extra effort and risks associated with manually altering your water hardness in the long term.

Looking at your fish list, the recommended range for celestial pearl danios goes down to 90 ppm/5 German degrees and ember tetras down to 18 ppm/1 German deg. Figures from my usual go-to site Seriously Fish

If your water is very soft (less than 4 German deg/70 ppm) your snails might suffer from shell erosion particularly if the pH is also below 7. All you need is a bit of cuttlefish bone like they sell for budgies hidden somewhere in your tank.


I found that orange-green end point very hard to see as my water is fairly soft. Unlike the KH which is a sudden yellow-blue colour change (or blue-yellow, whichever) the GH one seemed to me to be a gradual change. Maybe it is easier to see with hard water.
This is the page for your postcode on United Utilities. The table is on the bottom of the next page.
UU gave the hardness as degrees Clark, the UK unit which is not used in fishkeeping. For conversion, 1 deg Clark = 0.8 deg German and 14.3 ppm. You'll see one of these two units used in fish profiles everywhere. Seriously Fish uses both depending on who actually wrote the profile.

The cuttlefish bone won't change the parameters particularly but it does provide calcium for snail shells.


Some fish just do things like that. I recently found one of my hengels rasboras dried up on the carpet.


The ember tetras will be fine as will most fish from south America