Is This Bottled Spring Water Safe? Tap Water Is Brown!

[CEB]

Hi.

Sorry for such a long post. Want to give all info.

Long story short; twice in the last month our tap water has been brown. "Safe to drink, it's just sediment" says the water company, "Not safe for my fish to live in" says I. I noticed it as I was just about to refill the tank during a 20% water change. I didn't fill!

I've decided to fill with bottled spring water, but to my shame I don't know what levels of chemicals are harmful. No point in having a community like this without asking the experts.

I bought Tesco Strathlomond Mountain Spring, here are the stats from the label (mg/litre):
Calcium 26mg
Magnesium 6mg
Potassium <1mg
Sodium 7mg
Chloride 6mg
Flouride <0.1mg
Aluminium <0.005mg
Bicarbonate 80mg
Sulphate 7.7mg
Nitrate <4mg
pH at source 7.4
Dry Residue at 180 deg C

My tank has:
250ish litres - set up about 4 years ago.
Good water conditions generally, except it's very hard water.
pH 7.4 - 7.6
No salt added
Red-eye Tetras, Cardinal Tetras, 2 Peper Corydoras, and a few old misc
Java Fern and one other plant I can't identify (neither doing too well at the moment - unusual for me)
Twin powerheads on undergravel filter
Smallish powered box filter to keep the water clear
Lots of algae since my pleco died (waiting to get sucking loaches)
I use Interpet General Tonic and Interpet Flora Boost from time to time.

I know some minerals are essential for fish and plant, but I don't know whether this water is good enough or whether I need to treat it. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[Chri$]

That water would be fine as long as you dechlorinate it first

 

[Coomon10]

Along the same lines... Does anyone use rain water for their tank? Any problems associated with that since i guess its pretty pure (so long as its not after after a particularly dry spell i believe).

TIA

 

[Chri$]

I would advise against it as regards to pollution etc, but that depends on where you live.

 

[jayjay]

That water wouldn't really need to be decholred as if you shake it and leave it for a few hours the chlorine would disperse anyway but if you want to be safe use decholr.

The water would be fine I would think. Also rain water is ok to use as long as your guttering is clean and you don't live in the middle of a city or something, also don't rely on rain water as when it doesn't rain what are you going to do then?

 

[andywg]

Rain water is fine. There is almost no pollution unless you live by a huge dirty industrial site pumping a serious amount of pollutants into the sky.

Rainwater will naturally be soft and somewhat acidic. Perfect for South American fish, not so good for Old World Cichlids.

 

[Coomon10]

Rainwater will naturally be soft and somewhat acidic. Perfect for South American fish, not so good for Old World Cichlids.

So my community tank of platies, guppies etc will be fine?

 

[oscar52]

Rainwater will naturally be soft and somewhat acidic. Perfect for South American fish, not so good for Old World Cichlids.

So my community tank of platies, guppies etc will be fine?

Bloke in LFS uses rain water, and recommends it, but only if collected of a slate roof (not clay tiles) or from a plastic roof such as a conservatory.

 

[Dude]

Rainwater will naturally be soft and somewhat acidic. Perfect for South American fish, not so good for Old World Cichlids.

So my community tank of platies, guppies etc will be fine?

Bloke in LFS uses rain water, and recommends it, but only if collected of a slate roof (not clay tiles) or from a plastic roof such as a conservatory.

why not from clay tiles? how dose it affect the water?

 

[jarmado]

have you looked into using RO water instead?
might be cheaper than bottled water but you might need some chemicals to bring back some of the minerals.

 

[Coomon10]

Apologies but what is RO water?

Guessing the safest way to collect water (but probably not much of it!) is directly from the sky, or maybe use more natural methods such as dripoff routes from trees?

 

[jarmado]

Apologies but what is RO water?

Guessing the safest way to collect water (but probably not much of it!) is directly from the sky, or maybe use more natural methods such as dripoff routes from trees?

reverse osmosis water.
available at some lfs.

EDIT: lfs - local fish shop