Soft Water Softeners

[Sundiego]

Hi I'm a noob to the site, lots of great info here. I have been reading books, as well as this site and will have my tank here in about 4 weeks. I already have all of my equipment. I have a FW tank but this is my first SW tank. I will have a 100 gal.

My question:

I have a soft water softener in my house. The water here in San Diego is very hard. Currently my system uses Potassium to soften the water. It can also use salt, but I prefer to use the more pricey Potassium pellets as this does not add sodium to the water, and is ok for watering my plants.

Is this ok for my new tank? If not I have an outside line which I can access pretty easily that has a bypass to the soft water system. I have not tested the water yet. I will be treating the water as well to get rid of chlorine.

Thx Mark

 

[roka64]

I have a water softener in my house and I use the salt pellets. I don't have any problems watering my plants. I doubt it really puts that much salt into the system. A 40Lbs bag will last me about 6 months or so. I don't know much about potassium other than it helps relieve cramps.....

 

[Sundiego]

Thanks roka, so if I switch back to salt this should be ok to use in the tank. I'm sure I will still have to condition the water though.

Mark

 

[Devilishturtles]

Interesting question. I don't have a water softener, so I'm not sure. Have you tested your water that is straight out of the tap and not treated? Even if it's hard, that might work slightly to your advantage with a sw tank, whereas it wouldn't really in a fw tank. The only thing you may have to be worried about is if the water contains other things that are undesireable, such as nitrates, phosphates, ammonia, etc. or other minerals that aren't found in natural sea water. Most of this is okay for the fish and corals, but can feed algae in your tank.

I would somehow feel not so good using water that contained postassium for my aquarium, but postassium is found in small amounts in natural sea water, and I have no clue what an overabundance of it would do to your tank.

The salt softener, I agree with Scott, should be just fine to use.

Sorry that's not really a definitive answer.

welcome to AA, btw.

 

[melosu58]

Welcome to AA. Any reason you can not get an RO/DI unit. As Lindsay said there might be other things in the water you need to take care of. I noticed you did not mention anything about one so I was just suggesting one. You can get a good one for less than a hundred dollars. That is the route I have gone and would be for you also.JMO

 

[roka64]

I used to use the tap from my well without using any kind of conditioner, but all water is different. I do like Mike's suggestion of running it through an RO/DI unit like I do now.

 

[Sundiego]

I have been looking at RO/DI units here: http://www.thefilterguys.biz/

I have been talking to them via e-mail, so I will probabally get one. I will just hook it up to a hose fitting I have in the garage, and make my water in batches (possibly in a rubbermaid trashcan). First I need to test my tap water, I should be doing that in the next week.

mark

 

[melosu58]

I agree. Test your water and then you`ll know for sure. One thing you cant test for is heavy metals unless you do it with a TDS meter. I have always used RO/DI water whether I got it from the LFS (7 yrs) or got my own unit (3 yrs). I believe you`ll be happier with the RO/DI unit.