Thank you very much! Would recommend filtered water versus plain tap water? I'm close to the gulf coast with a lot of chemical plants nearby.Hi and welcome to the site.
There are a lot of possibilities and directions you can go so let's start with the basics: What is the water chemistry of your water. pH, Ammonia, Nitrate, General Hardness and Carbonate hardness. If you don't have a test kit, take a good sample of your water ( maybe a pint's worth) to your local pet shop and ask them to test those things and tell you the actual values/ numbers and do not accept the answer " They are fine or good." Bring a pad and pen to write the numbers down. We can better advise from there.
Whatever you plan on using in the tank. Filtered may be better but you may go trough a lot of filters because you should be doing weekly water changes or at least 20%-25% of the tank.
If "filtered tap water" means its gone through something like a Brita water filter i wouldnt use it. Brita filters have a charcoal filter that takes out impurities like chlorine, which isnt a bad thing but its also a water softener. Water softeners will remove calcium and magnesium making the water softer, which again may not be a bad thing but they work by replacing the hardness with sodium. Sodium isnt good for freshwater fish. You may get away with it, you may not. It really depends on how hard the source water is. If its very hard, thats a lot of calcium and magnesium being removed and a lot of sodium that needs to go in to replace it. If its not very hard to start with, then less sodium needs to go in. If you speak to Brita (or other similar water filter manufacturers) they will not recommend using their filtered water for aquariums. The filter usually has a bypass.
Makes perfect sense. Thank you.
I see, much appreciated!!
