So… best guess what I end up with… water

So I had one tank, that is on the opposite side of the house, from my RO filter, and that tank was actually plumbed to the house water… so it’s only been getting house softened water, up to a couple weeks ago, when I capped off the softened water line. & ran a 1/4 inch poly line from the well water line feeding the softer… so this is really hard water I’ve begun slowly adding hard water the fish in this tank are all hard water fish, that have been surviving ( barely) with house softened water, which is really alkaline… so for now, 5 gallons a week water change, and about 5 gallons a week of evaporation, and plant use, is being replaced with hard well water… the whole back of the 55 gallon tank has hanging pots with pothos vines in them… all the pots are a mix of my “Coco puffs” a round ceramic bio media, and peat beads…

My goal here is maybe a neural Ph water, that is full of minerals… I’ll be testing it every other week, and maybe adjusting something if necessary… likely whatever I end up with, will be better than house softened water for the fish living there

Any guesses??? Note that this tank has 2 Aquaclear 70’s one with a pot as described above, but with a fancy Chinese evergreen in the filter, in a pot, as described above

Do you have the numbers from both water sources (ph/gh/kh)? I mix RO water with tap and use a TDS meter. I mix about 60/40 RO/Tap and shoot for 60 TDS. For me my PH is around 6.8-7. Water from my tap is around 7.5 PH with the API nitrate test showing 20ppm straight from the tap. My TDS readings are around 121 from the tap as well fairly consistently.

For me in your situation the real test would be the eye test. You say your fish are barely holding on with the alkaline water parameters and are hard water fish. Personally I would probably step up your hard water numbers to 20% (10-12 gallons) and watch how your fish react.

You say you've attached the well line to feed into your water softening system, is that correct?

The Hard water line I put in is for filling this tank… and the area we are in is about like liquid rock hard

So eventually the tank will slowly become rock hard, but the tank will have some driftwood and lots of plants, with peat beads in the growing media… lots of floating water lettuce, and Java Fern in the tank

I'm no water tester, but hard water is tough stuff. It will do what it wants to, in spite of anything you want to do. It'll resemble the well water quickly.

Thanks primarily Rainbows and live bearers, so I think they will be happier with the well water than the house softened water