I'm planning a 90 gallon community tank with heavy fish load and moderate plants, freshwater. I live in Illinois on well water and it's 400ppm GH with KH of 200. I'd like to keep angels and tetras. The water from my water softener is 60 GH and 200 KH but I'd have to add some Ca (no big deal). I'm considering mixing the both of them to get around a 150ppm GH. RO is not an option. Any issue with this?
Hard midwest water and water softeners
- Thread starter SteveV
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Water that has gone through a softener often isnt good for freshwater fish. Some people get away with it, some people dont.
Water softeners work on an iron exchange principal. The calcium and magnesium is removed and replaced with another element which is usually sodium, and sodium is harmful to freshwater fish. Really depends on the sodium level after its gone through the softener and you have mixed it with your well water.
It comes down to how much calcium/ magnesium is removed and therefore how much sodium is added to carry out the ion exchange. From your numbers you there is a big difference between your tapwater GH and the GH of your softened water, so i would expect quite a of sodium has gone into it. Does your softened water taste salty?
Having spoken to water softener manufacturers in the past, they rarely recommend using water thats gone through their products in aquariums.
Water softeners work on an iron exchange principal. The calcium and magnesium is removed and replaced with another element which is usually sodium, and sodium is harmful to freshwater fish. Really depends on the sodium level after its gone through the softener and you have mixed it with your well water.
It comes down to how much calcium/ magnesium is removed and therefore how much sodium is added to carry out the ion exchange. From your numbers you there is a big difference between your tapwater GH and the GH of your softened water, so i would expect quite a of sodium has gone into it. Does your softened water taste salty?
Having spoken to water softener manufacturers in the past, they rarely recommend using water thats gone through their products in aquariums.
Andy Sager
Aquarium Advice Addict
For what it's worth, it's usually a much more pleasant aquarium experience to keep fish that work with your water " as is" rather than trying to change it to fit a species. Needing to constantly change water leads to potential issues like: Did I change it too much? Did I not change it enough? What if I go away and have somebody adding water for evaporation and they don't do it correctly? and the like.
If you still want to change your water more naturally, I suggest setting up a large container ( i.e rain barrel, aquarium, farm feeding bin) and use peat moss or wood to naturally soften the water. This takes more time to do than a softener but has little to no drawbacks past the time it takes.
If you still want to change your water more naturally, I suggest setting up a large container ( i.e rain barrel, aquarium, farm feeding bin) and use peat moss or wood to naturally soften the water. This takes more time to do than a softener but has little to no drawbacks past the time it takes.
Yes I agree Andy. My RO filter is in the basement and I'm not lugging 5 gallon buckets 6 times for a water change. If this doesn't work, I'll try just fish and if that doesn't work, I'll move to cichlids. Which I really hate to do. I love angel fish and my only experience with cichlids was they fought all the time. However, I've seen many posts where softened water has worked for folks. I know i don't know HOW hard their water was but it's worth a try I think.
Andy Sager
Aquarium Advice Addict
For what it's worth, if you can, get Angels from South Florida farms because they are in South Florida's very hard water HOWEVER, I believe the the GH was only about 300 ppm. I had an Angelfish hatchery in that water and it didn't effect the fish ( I raised close to 1 million saleable Angels there) but when I moved my breeder Angels from NJ's very soft water to Florida's very hard water, they never bred again.
Same with some of the tetra species. You'll just want to avoid wild caught Tetras as they will be coming from very soft water and probably won't adapt or adapt well. Similar threads
