Water softener

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meg_cummins
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Feb 20, 2013 5:36 pm

Water softener

Post by meg_cummins » Wed Feb 20, 2013 5:53 pm

Hi, I need some help. We just moved into a house with city water and have hooked up our water softener. I have 5 clowns, 4 kuhliis, and 3 zebras, along with guppies, neons, glow light tetras, plecos, otos, and a few ghost shirinp that haven't been eaten yet. My question is will the increased salinity of the "soft" water hurt my loaches? Thanks!!

Diana
Posts: 4675
Joined: Wed Jan 04, 2006 1:35 am
Location: Near San Franciso

Re: Water softener

Post by Diana » Thu Feb 28, 2013 1:35 am

It is not the best. If there is any way you can get water that has the sodium removed that would be MUCH better. For example, after the water has passed through the softener, then run it through a reverse osmosis unit. This will take out the sodium, and pretty much everything else.
Then blend the RO water with the original tap water (before the softener) to add back the minerals the fish and plants need.
Depending on how hard the tap water is you might make a blend of 25% to as much as 75% tap + 75% to 25% RO, or whatever variation results in a GH that is appropriate to the fish you keep.
You could buy a bottle of RO or distilled water and make a few test batches.
If you can get the GH pretty close, then you might add a handful of peat moss to the test batch. This will add the organic acids that many soft water fish like.
For most soft water fish a GH under 9 German degrees of hardness is best, and as low as 5 degrees is better. There are a few very particular fish that would need the GH to be as low as about 1-2 degrees.

Goal:
1) Set the GH where your fish want it. (research each fish you keep)
2) Make the KH fairly close to the GH.
3) Adjust the pH by filtering the water through peat moss if needed.
38 tanks, 2 ponds over 4000 liters of water to keep clean and fresh.

Happy fish keeping!

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