Water Sources

[ceecrb1]

I just read the stats you posted on your tap water and I have harder water with a pH of 7.8 from my tap. My fish do fine in my water although I would be a bit suspicious if the tap you are measuring has already been through a water softener, that thing that uses salt, before you measured it. If it has, your natural water is far too hard to use and will have far too many minerals in it after substituting sodium for most of the calcium and magnesium in he water and still measuring over 200 ppm GH. You should probably try to measure some of the water before it is processed or as an alternative measure it with a TDS meter. The spring water is a great idea for diluting the tap water but at only about 1 degree of hardness is too lacking in minerals for all but the most soft water tolerant of fish. What you are seeing is water in those springs that is comparable in purity to the water they are trying to sell you at your fish shop.

Slightly confused.. in short I should use the spring waters from the mountains here because its measuring the same as the tap water.. but hasnt been treated (for worse then better again in this case)

Correct?

 

[jmkgreen]

Have you checked out the levels of calcium? I ask because there are rules on how much can be added to the domestic water supply in lots of areas to prevent health problems. You appear to have excessive amounts?

 

[ceecrb1]

Have you checked out the levels of calcium? I ask because there are rules on how much can be added to the domestic water supply in lots of areas to prevent health problems. You appear to have excessive amounts?

dont have a calcium test..

but i can tell you.. before we installed the calcium remover.. we had to clean all tap heads weekly or they clogged up.

I've learned that this calcium remover doesnt.. it adds salt and only counter-acts it.. from a spanish form it seems i'm actually better off using the water from BEFORE our calcium filter rather than after.

It looks like my best option is water from a natural spring/fountain here mixed with distilled water at 50/50% to give me a gh of 15(ish)

 

[OldMan47]

Sorry that I was not clear enough.
Water that has been treated to soften it and make it less likely to give a big buildup on water faucets and inside the pipes has not been purified. Water hardness is a measure of calcium and magnesium only. The domestic water softener that uses salt for regenerating the resin does not remove anything. It substitutes sodium, from the salt, for the calcium and magnesium in the water. When you measure the GH of the water you are only measuring the calcium and magnesium. The sodium is invisible to that test. The whole point to my earlier post was to try to warn that merely substituting one metal for another in the water's mineral content will be no benefit at all to the fish, but it will make your test measure a lower GH value. That lower value would not be too bad if the water had not been treated to disguise the mineral content by changing its nature. Either you need to measure the hardness before the treatment to get a feel for how high the minerals are in your water or you need to measure total dissolved solids, TDS, directly instead of relying on hardness to indicate what it might be. Many people grew up thinking that fish so and so needs soft water but that is because measuring TDS was once difficult and hardness measurement was easy. What that fish really needs is water that is low in mineral content which is really not the same thing.

 

[mbsqw1d]

whats wrong with using 100% bottled water?

 

[OldMan47]

Nothing at all is wrong with bottled water if you know what is in the water. Mineral content must be high enough or the fish will die. Once the mineral content is high enough. The right minerals is also a good idea although not quite as critical as having the right amount. Most water made for drinking water is quite low in mineral content and the small amount added back in for flavor is often nothing more than ordinary table salt. If you are using water like that, you could use the minerals made for reconstituting RO water, but then RO is cheaper than drinking water so why not start there.