Distilled water question

[betta4ever!]

As some of you already know, I recently got some Betta Coccina. My ph is 6.5 and my GH and KH are quite low too, but I want to lower them a bit more. I'm thinking about doing 1/4 or 1/3 distilled water, I'll experiment (not in the tank obviously), and I'll see what works best. My question is, would distilled water from the supermarket be safe? It's not made for humans to drink, so that worries me a little. And no, I cannot get an RO system, simply because my parents won't let me.

 

[AbbeysDad]

Although you can mess with your water chemistry (many hobbyists do) I tend to believe that your better off just living with the source water that you have. 'Chasing your tail' to match some imaginary water chemistry target doesn't necessarily meet the best needs of your fish and fish will often acclimate to a fairly wide range of water chemistries. You already have very soft, acidic water, so I'd leave it at that. Now I might feel differently if you had 'liquid rock' water, but even then I'd tend to suggest caution in messing with water chemistry as it's not for the faint at heart but for the very experienced hobbyist and often leads to disaster.

 

[betta4ever!]

Although you can mess with your water chemistry (many hobbyists do) I tend to believe that your better off just living with the source water that you have. 'Chasing your tail' to match some imaginary water chemistry target doesn't necessarily meet the best needs of your fish and fish will often acclimate to a fairly wide range of water chemistries. You already have very soft, acidic water, so I'd leave it at that. Now I might feel differently if you had 'liquid rock' water, but even then I'd tend to suggest caution in messing with water chemistry as it's not for the faint at heart but for the very experienced hobbyist and often leads to disaster.

Thanks for taking the time to answer. I usually don't like messing with my parameters much, but my Coccinas are special to me. They normally live in very acidic water, and are also endangered. And I'm pretty sure they're doing great in my water, but my goal is to breed them, and I'm not very sure if that's possible in my water. My fish are pretty young, so this might also be the reason they're not breeding. I guess I'll look into messing with the parameters in a few months when I'll be sure that the reason they're not breeding is my params and not their age...

 

[Byron]

I certainly concur with @AbbeysDad here. You have not given us numbers for GH and KH (pH is 6.5), and the GH is actually the more important parameter of the three.

 

[betta4ever!]

I certainly concur with @AbbeysDad here. You have not given us numbers for GH and KH (pH is 6.5), and the GH is actually the more important parameter of the three.

I've lost my gh test and I can't find ittt. I'll do my best to find it lol. Thanks for the reply.

 

[GaryE]

The rule I follow is that if I have chosen a fish that should be fine in my water, I wait and see how it does. That takes time.

If there are 3 failed spawns, then you can start thinking of adjusting, a little each time with good monitoring of hardness. I had an Apistogramma that succeeded in producing young on its 17th spawning. I was carefully dropping the hardness every time. Little by little, and expect no quick fixes. It may already be okay.

 

[betta4ever!]

The rule I follow is that if I have chosen a fish that should be fine in my water, I wait and see how it does. That takes time.

If there are 3 failed spawns, then you can start thinking of adjusting, a little each time with good monitoring of hardness. I had an Apistogramma that succeeded in producing young on its 17th spawning. I was carefully dropping the hardness every time. Little by little, and expect no quick fixes. It may already be okay.

Thanks for the reply! That's good to know!

 

[betta4ever!]

I finally found my KH test!! It's 6. How would you go about that?

 

[TwoTankAmin]

KH matters

It took me over a decade in the hobby before I was willing to try keeping fish for which I was required to alter my tap water paramters. This is much easier to do when the goal is harder water and/or higher pH. Lowering is a bigger challenge. The below is not advice to lower your pH and/or hardness, but is just what it takes to do it.

If one is trying to lower the pH of their water then KH is the most important parameter. KH is what holds pH up. So the road to lowering one's pH is paved with KH. KH also contributes to conductivity/TDS.

I drop my pH and TDS by using a combination of things. The first is that I make my own RO/DI water which gets niex with my tap. However, at the last CatCon I could not connect my portable unit to the hotel sink to make pure water. I had to make an emergency run to a nearby supermarket to buy 24 gallons of distilled water. It is pretty much the same thing as my unit outputs but more expensive. So if you want to play around to see if you might want to get a unit, distilled is what you should use.

Softening one's water means removing and/or diluting. I use TDS meters and then a continuous 3-way monitor for conductivity/TDS, temperature and pH to measure it all. When it comes to spawning for soft water fish, GH is indeed the focus. But this assumes that the pH and temp. are in the right range as well.

Finally, once you alter the parameters in a tank from those in your tap, the replacement water going in must match the tank parameters. I have to pre-batch the new water every week.

I am lazy at heart. I always want to find a solution that works which requires the least effort. The simplest solution is usually the best one.

The chemistry involved with paramters and altering them is not simple. Things all interconnect. My favorite place I like to send people so they can get an idea about water parameters and the ways to alter them is here: https://fins.actwin.com/mirror/begin-chem.html