Need help with hardness...

[paddles]

Hi, I recently got given a fishtank setup.... (well half of one, I had to get a new tank....)

I am having problems with the water, and no longer have faith in the local pet store. I am having hardness problems, the pet stores solution is to keep telling me to add more salt (the blue conditioning one) but I actually think now that the water might be too salty... (is there some way of testing what the salt content is??

Most of the fish have died, on the test strips (api 5 in 1 test strips) it says that the General hardness is too high (180) and the carbonate hardness too low (0) how can I fix this????? should I do a partial water change? (I believe that the water here is very soft)

I have a decent canister filter.

thank you

[Kimbo]

I have had this problem and have been told not to use the blue salt. Instead I got a bag of white salt and added this to the tank. It seems to be working well.

[paddles]

I ended up in desperation, as the last fish gave the last gasp, draining the tank, washing everything, and starting again. I shall leave the tank empty now untill after the school holidays (just the plants)
I treated everything as a new tank, dosed with various chemicals (bio stuff, water ager, salt etc, to the manufactures instructions. The general hardness is down, but the carbonate hardness is still not registering on the strips.... oh well I'll keep trying

although, someone said that they are treating the water around here with copper to kill the blue green algea, maybe that could be what is wrong..