GE Dishwasher Automatic Detergent Dispenser Clogged - DC Water Grain?

I don't know what it is with GE appliances, but we haven't had a lot of luck with them. In Milwaukee our automatic ice dispenser didn't last very long. And it didn't last much longer here with the new GE refrigerator in spite of following instructions for regular filter changes. Now we started to notice that the dishes weren't quite as clean as they should be, and found that the automatic detergent dispenser component didn't seem to be working because the level of detergent hasn't changed for awhile. So my husband snaked a wire through and sure enough, it was very clogged. But that maneuver didn't seem to fix the problem. So now we are going to use the manual dispenser. Upon reading the instructions, they said to contact the water department to find out how hard the water is first. That would then tell you how much detergent you should use. So I sent an email to the DC water department. It was bounced back because the person is on vacation. They left another name to contact so I did. That person returned the email with a number to call. I called the number. They said to leave a message with a name and number. I did.  Did they return the call? Of course not. So now we will probably never known whatever information we need. I think we will just get the cascade tablets and forget this ever happened.