Dealing with bad water
- Thread starter Codefox
- Start date
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If you have answers, please help by responding to the unanswered posts.
FishCrazyBenBOMB
Aquarium Advice Addict
There are liquid things you can buy and dose it into the aquarium that lowers the pH.
jsoong
Aquarium Advice Addict
"Liquid things that lowers pH" is not a good thing to use ... you get yo-yo-ing pH more often than not. <There are chemical means to remove carbonates from water, but that is a different thing altogether.>
The best way to deal with water that is heavily contaminated is to use a reverse osmosis unit to strip out all the ions in the water. Then you have to add back minerals to the R/O water to maintain buffering capacity (& hence stable pH) & for minerals needed for fish (or plants or inverts.) Some people just mix in tap water for this (assuming that the tap is just hard & not toxic). But if there are nasties in the tap, it is best to use a comercial salt mix (different kinds for different fish requirements --- ie low pH vs high pH)
The best way to deal with water that is heavily contaminated is to use a reverse osmosis unit to strip out all the ions in the water. Then you have to add back minerals to the R/O water to maintain buffering capacity (& hence stable pH) & for minerals needed for fish (or plants or inverts.) Some people just mix in tap water for this (assuming that the tap is just hard & not toxic). But if there are nasties in the tap, it is best to use a comercial salt mix (different kinds for different fish requirements --- ie low pH vs high pH)
Zagz
Aquarium Advice Addict
I have to agree the RO water would be the best for you. Can you get ahold of your city and get a report of what is in the water so that you would know if it was safe to add tap and RO water to the tank?
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