Remineralize distilled water

[funkyfins]

Hey guys! So quick question. I’m helping a friend set up a heavily planted 15g flex in a few weeks. Her well water is absolute garbage so we were planning on using distilled since she always has 5g water cooler jugs. (You don’t wanna drink this well water yo) what’s the best/easiest way to remineralize the distilled water? Would a product like Seachem Replenish do the job? Would mixing distilled with my tap water work better? I’d rather not haul water to her place but if that’s a better option then I def will. Our stocking plan is 1 dwarf gourami or beta, and 6 or so nano schooling fish (think chili rasboras). we’ll be using a substrate combo of gravel and either ADA Amazonia II or Eco Complete and an all in one fert like flourish or easy green. Thanks!

 

[Colin_T]

What's wrong with the well water?

How hard is your tap water?

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Avoid dwarf gouramis (Colisa lalius) and all its colour forms because they are regularly infected with the gourami Iridovirus ad or Fish Tuberculosis (TB), neither of which can be treated and you don't know if the fish have it until it's too late.

There are plenty of other small gouramis (honey, licorice, sparkling, Indian banded) that don't have these health issues.

Male Betta splendens (Siamese fighting fish) should not be kept with other fish. Some Bettas are fine but others can snap and go nuts, killing everything in the tank. For the other fish's safety, it is best to keep male Bettas on their own.

 

[seannx]

The well water where I live is over 1200 tds so I use locally sourced spring water at 24 tds. After adding water conditioner in case there is some ammonia, it gets up to 29 tds, and then I use a product called Salty Shimp. The water is in food grade 5 gallon buckets and about one scoop of the plastic spoon that comes with it gets the tds up to 100. I stir it really well, and after it sits overnight the tds gets up around 150. It normally measures 175 in the tank, so anything from 140-175 is fine. Salty Shimp has a good mineral content for fish and shrimp. I have a mix of community fish, glass and cherry shrimp, and a few snails, and they all do fine. I have a couple of extra heaters, one per bucket, turn them on in the am, and do the water change in the pm, using a digital temperature food thermometer to make sure the temperature’s right. As long as it’s within 1-2 degrees that’s okay. An inexpensive tds meter, digital thermometer, and Salty Shrimp are all available on line.

 

[Colin_T]

Any idea what the pH, general hardness (GH), and carbonate hardness (KH) are?

Can you test the ammonia, nitrite and nitrate of the water?

 

[Aqua67]

I also have a well (TDS ~400) but I use RO water remineralized for human consumption (TDS 5) to do my water changes. I use Shrimp Mineral powder to add GH/KH to my shrimp tank. In my other planted tanks (without shrimp) I use Seachem Equilibrium. Any evaporation is topped off with straight RO water until it is time to do another water change. I keep the TDS between 150-180 in all of my tanks, in general.