Softening hard Water

[drew]

I am wanting to start keeping tropical fish, never having done it before.

I have been looking at keeping Cardinal Tetra's and other fish that like soft slightly acid water.

The problem is I live in an area with moderately hard water
(260mg/l GH 210mg/l KH), which I tested with a GH/KH kit.

As an experiment, I tested the water out of the household Britta Water Filter and found this to be ( what I have read) perfect for fish that require soft slightly acid water. It was 60mg/l GH and a pH of 6.5

Would it be ok to use the water from the water filter to make the 25% water changes required every 1-2 weeks? Does the water filter do anything else to the water that would make it harmful to the fish?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[zull]

hi drew,

please make sure that you read the article at the top of begginer about cycling to help you get started.

about the hardness. i live in an area where our water is extremly hard and what i have heard about using the britta is that it really doesnt help.

my husband and i with the help with our fish store that we deal with, we are lowering our hardness and ph by doing a 5g bottle of distilled water every week. it will be a slow process so it won't hurt the fish. and it is working, fish are heathier for we have mostly tetras and other fish that like softer water.

good luck, fish keeping sometimes is hard work but very rewarding and a lot of fun

 

[drew]

Do you know why the water filter doesn't help?

I may be completely wrong here, but if it has softened the water and lowered the pH, will it not stay like that? I realise you have to keep changing the water to keep the pollution levels down, but if I replace the water taken with newly filtered water will it not be ok?

 

[mrV]

So the dGH is about 14-15 and water is middle hard - hard. Have you think about keeping hard water fishes?

If you want to keep soft water ones, you need maybe RO-unit. (reverse osmosis)

 

[thecichlidaddict]

I think an R/O unit is about the only way to go.

The problem with almost every other method of softening water is that it leaves all of the dissolved elements that caused the water to be hard in the first place. Reverse Osmosis filters out these elements so that the water becomes not only soft, but stable too.

By the way, I suggest you find out how your fish store keeps their fish. Most of the fish we buy have been tank bred - they were born and raised in common tap water and are already quite used to it. Unless I'm buying wild caught fish I keep all of mine in the same untreated tap water and they all do just fine.

 

[drew]

I have thought about keeping hard water fishes, but I really want to set-up an amazon river bed tank with cardinal tetras.

I have also looked into a RO-unit, but these seem expensive and as this is going in my bedroom I am not sure how noisy they are. Which is another question I have, how noisy are external pumps?

But the question I really want answered is.. Is it possible to use a water filter to get your soft water?? Is there any fundamental reason why these shouldn't be used??

 

[drew]

chichlidadict just beat me to it!

cheers for that advice, the local shop keeps their cardinals in a water cycle system connected to a RO unit. So they won't be accustomed to the hard water.

So what does the water filter do then? how do the minerals come back?

 

[mrV]

So what does the water filter do then? how do the minerals come back?

sorry, but I have no clue what is "water filter"... If you use e.g. RO-unit, you need to add sometimes mineral salt into water, it depends do you use tap water at all... (Don't ever use distilled water without minerals! Distilled water is like toxin for human and animals...)

 

[drew]

water filter is one of the household jugs that you pour water into, this then puts water through a filter, and it comes out the other side softer.

the actual filter I think contains carbon and other things to remove chlorine, magnesium and other metals in the water.

So although the water is testing as 60mg/l GH it can change over time? Where as a RO unit provides water that is much more stable?

 

[mrV]

So although the water is testing as 60mg/l GH it can change over time?

Hmm, this is very, very interesting... If you have removed those particles from your water, it shouldn't change regardless of testing water today or next week (if you test same water and water is in same container and aynything cannot effect on it).

Where as a RO unit provides water that is much more stable?

http/www.aquarium-supply.biz/info/revers...se_osmosis.html
http/e-watersystems.com/ro.htm

 

[thecichlidaddict]

Those filters you are talking about do not take any of the dissolved elements that I was refferring to out. It acts as a chemical filter in the same way that carbon the fish filter does. R/O is a much more advanced filtration system, and the only one that will work for this.

 

[drew]

If it doesn't take any of the disolved elements out, why does the dH drop so much? and the pH?

Surely if the disolved elements were still there, they would still register?

 

[thecichlidaddict]

It is possible that a lack of oxygen in the water is causing the drop.

Do a test. Filter the water as usual, then open the lid and place an air stone in it. Run it for a few hours or overnight. Test the water again. What happened to the PH?

This is one possibility, I'm not sayin this is the reason - try it out, it's a worthwhile experiment.