Blending water... Hard & thru whole house Softener & RO... what to expect???

[Magnum Man]

so as a continuation... ( sorry, too many numbers & scales ) trying to get a handle on this...
"General guidelines for classification of waters are: 0 to 60 mg/L (milligrams per liter) as calcium carbonate is classified as soft; 61 to 120 mg/L as moderately hard; 121 to 180 mg/L as hard; and more than 180 mg/L as very hard." this from USGS

The actual GH of water from my Softener water is between 25 & 75 mg/L somewhere between soft, & moderately hard... I don't currently have a way of testing the actual unsoftened well water... I think that is correct, but my Alkalinity, & Carbonate hardness (KH) are both reading 300 mg/L ( as high as my test strips will test ) & my pH's have ranged from 8.4 from the tap ( again softener water ) to 8.2 with peat moss beads added to the cartridge filters ( at that strength, my tank water looks like coffee... so that's not an answer for lowering pH )

the RO unit should be up and running by next weekend & I'll likely be using all RO water for water changes, until my water parameters & the fish in those tanks match, at which point, I'll begin adding aquarium mineral supplements...

so... Sodium ions were mentioned as a likely problem, for the fish, & coming from the softened water... anyone aware of some test or strips to test for sodium ions... & is there such a thing as a recommended amount???

 

[Magnum Man]

so I can find test test strips that include sodium chloride... anyone know if the softened water that exchanged sodium ions during the softening process will test as sodium chloride, on a test???

found these strips... for sodium compounds... ( edit ) sorry, those are chloride test strips )

Amazon.com

hoping this will tell me when my sodium ion levels get safe again in my tanks, so I can begin adding some new fish...

 

[Essjay]

Those classifications are misleading. 'Moderately hard' for example, includes 61 ppm/3.4 dH at the lower end and that is soft as far as fish are concerned. 121 ppm/10 dH is OK for a number of soft water fish.
But at 300 ppm or more, your well water is definitely in the very hard region.


Are the sodium chloride testers expensive? Or in other words, are they cheap enough so that if they don't work you aren't much out of pocket?
I would be concerned that if your softener drops the GH so much there must be a lot of sodium in your tap water, and sodium is not good for us either.

 

[Magnum Man]

we have a drinking water RO unit in the kitchen for consumable water & ice cubes... I think that takes care of us people...

a funny... the Tilapia supplier I use, had a water warning ( people raise fish in ponds & all kinds of water ) they said these are fish you'll eat, you shouldn't put them in any water you wouldn't drink...

kinda hitting home with my aquariums right now... maybe should have hooked up an aquarium RO unit, before I even filled them up to begin with...

the test strips are not beyond what I can afford...

found this tester...

Amazon.com

"Moderately hard' for example, includes 61 ppm/3.4 dH at the lower end and that is soft as far as fish are concerned. 121 ppm/10 dH is OK for a number of soft water fish."

unless someone has one... I'm going to have to make up a conversion spread sheet... too many scales of reading hardness

 

[Essjay]

I wrote this a few years ago after UK water companies making water sound harder than it really is - we had members keeping hard water fish in soft water because their water companies used the word 'hard'

Hardness - words vs numbers

We always say to look on your water provider's website for hardness, and to ignore any words, look for a number. These are UK water company definitions of hardness compared to what we consider to be hard, soft and middling in fish keeping. Always look for numbers :) dH ppm Water company...

www.fishforums.net

 

[Magnum Man]

can I copy that & add a spot for mg/L to tie them all together... if I get it right, I can post it if that would help anyone out

I see on page 2 that there is a chart for mg/L... & if I had to guess I could buy 3 different test strips, each using a different scale...

 

[Essjay]

The chart on page 2 of the link - do you mean the one in post #18? If you mean that one, it's what the member's water company gives for the bands, which disagree with what we as fishkeepers would say.


As far as I'm aware, most of the test strips made for fish keeping use the scale ppm also called mg/l calcium carbonate. Others strips might use dH, also called German degrees. I don't know of any brands which use different scales.
Water providers are a different matter, they could use any of half a dozen different scales. But fish tank testing strips won't use any besides ppm or dH.

 

[Magnum Man]

yes, I printed that post... if it's in error, I'll toss it

so just to confirm, the mg/L is the same as the ppm scales... the numbers interchange in both scales???

& dH & German degrees are the same...

is there any chart that lists both scales to show what a specific dH equals in ppm or mg/L

 

[Byron]

When I was researching for my article on Water Hardness and pH* over a decade ago, I came up with this chart which was used by the majority of fish sites. Keep in mind, that like all such charts, the words have no specific scientific translation, they are just what the majority accept. But the number is always what you go by, as it is absolute and can relate to fish needs.

0 - 4 dGH 0 - 70 ppm very soft
4 - 8 dGH 70 - 140 ppm soft
8 - 12 dGH 140 - 210 ppm medium hard
12 - 18 dGH 210 - 320 ppm fairly hard
18 - 30 dGH 320 - 530 ppm hard
over 30 dGH over 530 ppm very hard

Parts per million (ppm) is equivalent to milligrams per liter (mg/l). As essjay noted, the hobby uses both ppm and degrees (dH). It is easy to convert between these. Divide ppm by 17.9 for the equivalent dH, and multiply dH by 17.9 for the equivalent ppm.

*my article is on AbbeysDad's blog if interested.

Contact Support

 

[Magnum Man]

Thank you guys... so at this point, we are talking GH readings correct???

now lets look at my soft water numbers & not think about the sodium for a second...

if my GH was 50 ppm, mg/L that would be pretty soft... but if my KH was 300 ( which is close to what is happening ) still forgetting about the sodium for a second... my GH is soft, but my KH is hard in my case the alkalinity is maxed, & the PH is over 8... is my water hard, even though my GH is relatively soft???

 

[Essjay]

Water softeners swap calcium & magnesium (what GH measures) for sodium. The GH in your well water is mostly swapped for sodium, but not all of it leaving you with that low GH reading.
Water softeners don't swap carbonate & bicarbonate (KH) for anything, so all the KH which comes out of the well is still in your tap water which is why tap water KH is high.

 

[Essjay]

I should explain further.

GH, or hardness, is the measure of divalent metal ions in the water. In practice, this is almost all calcium with some magnesium, and trace amounts of other metal ions. But a water testing company can't say "hardness is x ppm calcium plus y ppm magnesium plus a mg/l this metal plus b ppm that metal plus c ppm the other metal" so they give a value as if it was all calcium carbonate.

KH is called alkalinity by water testing companies. It is a measure of the buffering capacity of water - basically how easy it is to change pH - and is composed of carbonate and bicarbonate. Water testing companies determine KH by adding acid to a water sample until the pH drops to 4.5. The amount of acid it takes is expressed as KH. The higher the KH, the more acid it takes to drop the pH which is why it has a high number.
Again, water testing companies express KH as though it is all calcium carbonate.

 

[Magnum Man]

I put both charts & the scales that equal each other on a spread sheet...

a lot of the numbers don't exactly line up, but close enough, this has given me a much better understanding...

RO water for the fishies in a week or so, & no new fish, until I get a couple water changes & get some sodium out...

guessing if I added some aquarium salt it would be total over kill & I would be losing a lot of fish

 

[Essjay]

Yes. Aquarium salt is sodium chloride, so using that is adding more sodium to the tank.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

You need to do a bit of reading on water chemistry. Alkalinity and carbonate hardness are the same thing in out tanks which is why you have the same readings for them. I am was not sure about the units of measurement you are using. when I began yhis post yesterday but never hit enter. You have since clarified thingssome. I use 17.8 for the ppm.mg/l conversion to DH, but 17.9 is also fine.



Elevated sodium is not good for many FW fish. This was one of the big issues with house water softeners. But over time they got better. One can choose to use potassium chloride instead of sodium chloride, but yjr potassium is mor expensive. More recent salt based softeners have been redesigned to remove most of the sodium before the water goes into the interior plumbing. So how old your system is matters.

I am going to suggest what I tell any new fish people who are also ne to water chemistry. Go here and read: https://fins.actwin.com/mirror/begin-chem.html

I have an RO/DI unit and I batch water for my altum angels. Their tank is targetted to be 6.0 pH and TDS are targeted at 60 - 70 ppm. TDS measures anything and everything that might be in water and totals it. This would include things like salt, nitrate organics etc etc. I also have a continuous monitor on the tank for TDs/Temp/pH. I batch changing water next to the tank and use the same probes in the new water to get the parameters where they need to be based on the tank reading at that time.