The best way to soften water?

Stevetheadi

New Member
Joined
Jan 9, 2023
Messages
18
Reaction score
1
Location
Brigg, UK
Hi

The water coming out of my taps is very hard.

What is the most efficient (and cost efficient) way to soften it a little - aquarium soil? Driftwood?

Current readings:
413.715 mg/l (or parts per million)
23.499 °dH
 
Mixing your tap water with pure water such as RO water. Because your GH is so high other methods will have little impact.

A 50:50 mix would reduce your GH to ~206 ppm/12 dH.
25% RO: 75% tap would give you ~310 ppm/17.6 dH
75% RO : 25% tap would give ~103 ppm/5.8 dH.
 
Mixing your tap water with pure water such as RO water. Because your GH is so high other methods will have little impact.

A 50:50 mix would reduce your GH to ~206 ppm/12 dH.
25% RO: 75% tap would give you ~310 ppm/17.6 dH
75% RO : 25% tap would give ~103 ppm/5.8 dH.
Thank you but I think adding RO water at every water change would be too expensive, long term. I'll look into a RO filter system.
 
A lot of people opt for having their own RO equipment, many also using it for cooking and preparing drinks for themselves.
 
With hard water, you can also add a water softener in front of Your RO /DI setup. It reduce scaling and help the membrane to work more efficiently for a much longer period and reduce filter replacement frequency.
 
Rain water? Depending on your location if there's little to non pollution spots it should be ok. Could set up a water butt? Best not to connect it to roof gutters as they could collect contaminated water (bird poop, tile/brick remenats etc) Isolated water collection would be best for the water butt. Ive seen some water butts have a rain collecting lid before.

@Essjay would that work?
 
Yes rain water is good. But there are things to consider before going down that route - contaminated roof water, as you have mentioned; contaminated rain from industrial pollution and also agricultural pollution (eg crop spraying) and last but not least, can you guarantee having rain water available all year round.
 
There are three ways to reduce hardness in water: diluting the current water with rain water, reverse osmosis (r/o) water or distillation.

Rain water is great if you get clean rain or any rain but it's usually seasonal and can't always be relied on to be there when you need it. So you have to store lots of it and keep it on hand. Clean pure rain water should have a pH of 7.0, and a GH and KH of 0ppm.

Reverse osmosis (r/o) water can be expensive to buy and most people get a reverse osmosis unit for home use. R/O units come in different grades and the good ones have a 1:1 ratio whereby they produce 1 litre of pure water and 1 litre of waste water. Lower quality units have a 1:2, 1:3, 1:4 ratio where they produce 1 litre of pure water and 2, 3, 4 or more litres of waste water. This can increase your water bill if you are wasting 200 or 300 litres of water just to get 100 litres of pure water. So check the packaging and find a good quality unit. The waste water has all the minerals and some chemicals in and can go on the lawn. Good quality r/o units will provide water with a pH of 7.0, and a GH and KH of 0ppm. lower quality units will give water that has some minerals in but it should be less than 20ppm GH and KH. As r/o units get used their filters get clogged up and need replacing. When this happens you start getting a lot more minerals in the pure water.

Distillation is good if you live in a sunny area but not so good in cold climates. You can buy electric stills, make one that runs off fire like the old moonshiners used to do, or make a solar powered still. Distillation is slower than r/o but you don't waste any water.

---------------------

SOLAR STILL
Get a large plastic storage container and put it outside in the sun.
Pour a bucket of water into the storage container.
Put a clean bucket in the middle of the storage container. Have a clean, non-porous rock in the bucket to stop it floating around.
Put the lid on the storage container.
Put a rock or small weight on the lid in the middle, so the lid sags above the bucket.

As the sun heats up the container, water will evaporate and condense on the underside of the lid. The water will run towards the centre and drip into the bucket. When the bucket is full of water, you put it into a holding container and put the bucket back in the storage container with another bucket of tap water.

You get pure water with a pH of 7.0, 0 GH, 0KH and no wasted water, no power used and it's cheap to set up. The drawback is it needs sunlight. You can do it on a much slower scale inside a warm house but it is a lot slower and relies on the warm air in the house causing the water to evaporate and not the sun.
 
There are three ways to reduce hardness in water: diluting the current water with rain water, reverse osmosis (r/o) water or distillation.

Rain water is great if you get clean rain or any rain but it's usually seasonal and can't always be relied on to be there when you need it. So you have to store lots of it and keep it on hand. Clean pure rain water should have a pH of 7.0, and a GH and KH of 0ppm.

Reverse osmosis (r/o) water can be expensive to buy and most people get a reverse osmosis unit for home use. R/O units come in different grades and the good ones have a 1:1 ratio whereby they produce 1 litre of pure water and 1 litre of waste water. Lower quality units have a 1:2, 1:3, 1:4 ratio where they produce 1 litre of pure water and 2, 3, 4 or more litres of waste water. This can increase your water bill if you are wasting 200 or 300 litres of water just to get 100 litres of pure water. So check the packaging and find a good quality unit. The waste water has all the minerals and some chemicals in and can go on the lawn. Good quality r/o units will provide water with a pH of 7.0, and a GH and KH of 0ppm. lower quality units will give water that has some minerals in but it should be less than 20ppm GH and KH. As r/o units get used their filters get clogged up and need replacing. When this happens you start getting a lot more minerals in the pure water.

Distillation is good if you live in a sunny area but not so good in cold climates. You can buy electric stills, make one that runs off fire like the old moonshiners used to do, or make a solar powered still. Distillation is slower than r/o but you don't waste any water.

---------------------

SOLAR STILL
Get a large plastic storage container and put it outside in the sun.
Pour a bucket of water into the storage container.
Put a clean bucket in the middle of the storage container. Have a clean, non-porous rock in the bucket to stop it floating around.
Put the lid on the storage container.
Put a rock or small weight on the lid in the middle, so the lid sags above the bucket.

As the sun heats up the container, water will evaporate and condense on the underside of the lid. The water will run towards the centre and drip into the bucket. When the bucket is full of water, you put it into a holding container and put the bucket back in the storage container with another bucket of tap water.

You get pure water with a pH of 7.0, 0 GH, 0KH and no wasted water, no power used and it's cheap to set up. The drawback is it needs sunlight. You can do it on a much slower scale inside a warm house but it is a lot slower and relies on the warm air in the house causing the water to evaporate and not the sun.
Thank you! I'll look into it.
 
Just buy a simple room/house dehumidifier and set the drip hose to deposit into a trash can. You can't get much simpler than that. Many of the models have drain lines attached that all you need to do is collect it. If you want whole house options check with your local well people to see what is legal in your area like a simple water softener using potassium chloride which your plants can use instead of sodium which can accumulate and harm the local environment over time. I've seen some other ne fangled options I don't know if I trust yet.
 
Just buy a simple room/house dehumidifier
Even in the UK, which is well known for its damp climate, I'm not sure a dehumidifier would produce enough water for a weekly water change. Ours certainly wouldn't.

And having seen what's in the water I empty out, I wouldn't use it in my steam iron, let alone a fish tank.
 
Everybody says buy a RO unit to get rid of my well water nitrate problem and water hardness. However I need 25 gallons of water a week for water exchanges. The only place I can put a R/O unit is in the basement. How do I lug 25 gallons of water up a flight of stairs.
 

Most reactions

Back
Top