Filtering tap water

[Colin_T]

I don't drink the tap water in my state. It causes Methylated Spirits (ethyl alcohol) to turn pale green when I mix water with the methy. It also causes the solution to heat up instantly.

In addition to that, my tap water makes me feel sick if I drink a glass full and it tastes awful.

 

[NannaLou]

I don't drink the tap water in my state. It causes Methylated Spirits (ethyl alcohol) to turn pale green when I mix water with the methy. It also causes the solution to heat up instantly.

In addition to that, my tap water makes me feel sick if I drink a glass full and it tastes awful.

I don’t drink water at all, only use it to make tea/coffee/squash…

 

[Stormyrose786]

You can't keep mollies and guppies in distilled water. They will struggle for a few months and die. They need minerals.

You could mix distilled or reverse osmosis water with your tap water (50/50 mix). But you really need to find out what the GH (general hardness), KH (carbonate hardness) and pH of your water supply is. This information can usually be obtained from your water supply company's website or by telephoning them. If they can't help you, take a glass full of tap water to the local pet shop and get them to test it for you. Write the results down (in numbers) when they do the tests. And ask them what the results are in (eg: ppm, dGH, or something else).

Knowing the actual numbers for GH, KH and pH would help.

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To screen out microbes from water, you need very fine filters that contain micron screens or some sort of material that can trap bacteria, viruses, fungus, etc. These can be expensive to buy and difficult to find. Normally water companies add chlorine or chloramine to the water to kill these organisms.

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Some companies do big water filters and this might be easier because they hold more filtered water.

Okay, thanks for explaining about the microbes.

But yeah, I know fish can't live in water like that. I should have said, they told me I wouldn't have to add anything to distilled water, but then I read that you do. I knew that about RO water, & glad I found out that about distilled water. I read more about it last night, later.

And now that I am home, I can give you those numbers -

Unfiltered tap water -

pH - 7.6
KH - 140ppm
Gh - 200ppm

 

[Stormyrose786]

I’ve just had a look at that link, that’s not your water companies water quality report, that’s some environmental group lobbying for something. As someone that works with data all day, I’d be cautious making lots of work “treating” your tap water unless you know how and where they’ve gathered their data and how they have cut it to give those figures.

Do most people drink/use the tap water with no ill-effects..? I filter my tap water for making tea and coffee because it’s so hard the calcium build up ruin the kettle (and the tea tastes better) but it’s still safe to drink.

Most people I know personally drink bottled or filtered water, because ours tastes bad. I know for us, personally, we have a lot of lime built up in the pipes.

That link was sent to me by my neighbor, I'll look it up myself, & see what I can find.

 

[Stormyrose786]

I don't drink the tap water in my state. It causes Methylated Spirits (ethyl alcohol) to turn pale green when I mix water with the methy. It also causes the solution to heat up instantly.

In addition to that, my tap water makes me feel sick if I drink a glass full and it tastes awful.

Oh, wow

 

[Stormyrose786]

Question - all I'm finding are pdf files, is there not just something online? (Water quality report).

I am going to look at those, though.

 

[Stormyrose786]

Anyway, this is the link to that pdf

http://www.cityofbrentalabama.com/BRENT_2020_CCR.pdf

And I can't read it on my phone, even zoomed in, the print is too small. But looking at the one for the next city over, even if I could, I wouldn't really understand it. I know it's a long list of stuff, & it makes me think I should keep filtering the water.

In case I'm not doing this right, & someone else wants to look for it, it's for Brent, AL.

 

[Stormyrose786]

And I haven't even thought about the fact that we are probably moving soon - don't know where...

 

[NannaLou]

Anyway, this is the link to that pdf

http://www.cityofbrentalabama.com/BRENT_2020_CCR.pdf

I’ve opened it on my iPad and taken a screen shot - is that any easier for you..? I don’t know enough about what I’m looking at to give any further advice…sorry…

 

[Stormyrose786]

I’ve opened it on my iPad and taken a screen shot - is that any easier for you..? I don’t know enough about what I’m looking at to give any further advice…sorry…View attachment 148075

Yes, thank you!

 

[Stormyrose786]

In case anyone saw my numbers before I edited, I had put them down wrong, so here they are again -

Unfiltered tap water -

pH - 7.6
KH - 140ppm
GH - 200ppm

With Brita, in case anyone is curious (tested today) -

pH- 7.6
KH - 120ppm
GH - 185ppm

I am going to test Pur filter, just for my own curiosity.

 

[Stormyrose786]

And yeah, if anyone can understand that water quality report, I'd appreciate your thoughts ☺

 

[Stormyrose786]

Pur filter -
pH - 7.6
KH - 9
GH - 11

KH & GH are higher than with Brita

Anyway, that was all for my own curiosity. I am using both pitchers to cut down on time.

 

[Colin_T]

pH - 7.6
KH - 140ppm
Gh - 200ppm

That is ideal for guppies, platies & swordtails, but the GH is a bit low for mollies who do best in water with a GH above 250ppm. However, 200ppm is pretty close and they should do ok for a while.

The GH is too high for most tetras, Corydoras and loaches. These fish naturally occur in water with a GH below 100ppm.

If you mixed half rain water, reverse osmosis (R/O) water or distilled water with your tap water, you would have good water for the tetras, loaches and Cories.

Ideally you want 2 tanks. One for the livebearers who can have straight tap water that has been dechlorinated. The other tank would have a 50/50 mix of dechlorinated tap water and distilled, rain or r/o water.

 

[Colin_T]

Your water quality report says they treat the water with chlorine, not chloramine so that is good. Chlorine is easier to get rid of.

You have a slight amount of nitrates (less than 1ppm) from agricultural run off but it isn't that high. It's certainly much lower than the UK.

There is chloride but no sodium so not sure about that. I am guessing they didn't list sodium but did list chloride. Sodium chloride being salt and it usually gets measured separately (sodium and chloride).

There is a bit of sulphate, lead, copper and a few other bits that are quite low and nothing much to be concerned about.

There is barium in one of the wells that your water is tested from and that is not good.

Tetrachloroethylene is also a worry.

And there is no fluoride in the water so people in your town probably have soft teeth.

They didn't test for bacteria but there shouldn't be any due to the chlorine in the water.

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Use a carbon filter to remove some of the nasty stuff.