Tap vs Hose Water & Sand Substrate

[Twoapennything]

Hey guys! Is there a difference between tap water and hose water? Because I filled my tank up with the garden hose and used Prime and all that, and then thought, Hmm, what if the hose water is somehow unsafe? I'm thinking it's probably okay, as I'm sure we've all taken a drink out of the garden hose at some point in our lives and didn't keel over, but I thought I would check anyway.

*sigh* I'm doing my third cycle in six months because of the damage done to my filter on the Marineland Eclipse 3 by aquarium sand substrate. We had to completely dismantle the entire aquarium, order parts for the built-in filtration system, thoroughly wash out the tank and get every bit of grit out, and move the fish to the 10 gallon QT. And here I am on day 5 of a fishless cycle!

I had very bad luck with sand. I blew out my built in filtration system and also managed to damage three other filters I had bought to use while waiting for the Marineland parts to arrive - one was a Marineland power filter Penguin 350, one was a Marineland power filter Penguin 300, and the other was an Aqua Clear power filter 70 (previously the 300). Toast! Each time I could just hear the motor and impeller grinding and screeching away. It was really stressful! My poor fish - I lost a lot of them during this time

Well, if there is a bright side to all this, I guess it's that I get to keep redecorating my aquarium. I still kept the Asian theme, but kept it very simple - red, white, and black, with two bonsai trees.

Now off to the LFS - 50% off fish, coral, and merchandise sale.

 

[Lowryder]

It all comes from the same place. The big differenct is that if you have a whole house filtration, most likely hose water is unfiltered.

Also, if you are having a problem with sand in your filter, you might want to add a prefilter.

 

[CA_BroncoFan]

It really depends on where your city gets its water. Where i live they are all filtered but i have lived in places where the hose water is unpotable (unsafe)

 

[krap101]

I live in the country, and we have our own well. The difference for us is that our hosewater doesn't go through the water softener, while the rest of our water does. My mom uses that to water her plants inside though.

 

[MarkA123]

I used sand in my aquarium with a marineland penguin and made the mistake of running the filter while adding sand. The filter picked up all the sand and it took some major cleaning to get the impeller moving again. Now it's working fine but makes a grinding noise which marineland claimed wouldnt affect the performance which it hasn't other than having to clean more often. I did have to scrub my tank down because the sand started attaching to the glass and every other surface in the aquarium and had to do 2 100 percent water changes but now it's working perfectly I'm glad I got it instead of gravel it's much easier to clean IMO because you can just take a fish net and the sand will go through and it'll catch all the nasty stuff or siphon it which I do it doesn't suck up the sand like a iras told it would it just picks up the debree. So please don't change to gravel unless you really want to it's less maintence long term. And I use hose water for my aquarium because we add salt and a bunc of other water softening and chemicals to our tap. So I just use my hose because it's in my situation purer than my tap.

 

[Greenmaster]

...umm there are two main kind of hoses... ones that are safe to drink from and ones that are not. Camper hoses are okay but most garden hoses are not... an easy way to tell is to take a taste of the water coming out of the hose... if it tastes like hose then I wouldn't put it in my tank. Running the water for 5-15 min will help to "clean" out most of the stuff that leaches out, but it will still leach out a bit, just not in as high of a percentage. If I was planning on filling my tank (or the top up water) with a hose I would probably invest in a camper hose.

 

[mgamer20o0]

i have used older hoses to fill my tanks. after i get a new one ill wait months before using it on the tanks. some have anti mildew that might leech out. i been filling my tanks with a hose for years with out any problem. its all on city water all the same from any tap.

 

[MarkA123]

I use my hose I dont know what kind it is but I can't use tap water we add salt which will kill my albino Cory catfish. For a brackish tank I'd use my tap. My hose water tastes like hose water though. It doesn't have any ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate. And there is a major difference in the ph of the two. I guess because of the water softener added or something but I have a snail and acid water would crack his shell.

 

[Twoapennything]

So please don't change to gravel unless you really want to it's less maintence long term.

I did end up switching back to gravel substrate and I am glad that I did. I personally didn't care for the sand substrate in the long run - it was difficult to clean and looked dirty most of the time. Of course YMMV. For me, the problem was the filters. I went through three filters when I had the sand substrate within a period of about 3 weeks. I mean, that's just not acceptable! I did clean out the impellers in each one, but once they stopped working I was unable to fix them and get them up and running again. I'm sure PetSmart though I had some weird filter scam going on. The three filters I used were 2 Marineland and 1 Aqua Clear, both good, solid brands. I don't know why sand substrate just didn't work for me, but it just ate the filters to shreds.

Julie

 

[JohnPaul]

Something is terribly, terribly wrong with your setup if you were getting sand into your filters. If you're going to be rooting around a bunch in the sand, then obviously you should turn the filter off while you are doing that. But if somehow sand was getting sucked into your filter even when you weren't rooting around in the tank, I am not sure how that would be possible. Did you have some huge burrowing fishes thrashing around kicking up sand?

Were you using pool filter sand, or child's play sand? PFS is larger-grained and works much better in a tank than play sand, which can be very fine and much more easily kicked up.

Anyways, back to the question at hand: there are two issues with hoses. One, some of them will leach chemicals into the water. Two, since hoses tend to stay wet on the inside between uses, they are great for growing all kinds of bacteria and other nasty stuff.

Both of these issues could probably be mitigated enough simply by making sure that every time you are going to use it, to flush the hose for a minute or two before using it to start filling your tank.

 

[Twoapennything]

Something is terribly, terribly wrong with your setup if you were getting sand into your filters. If you're going to be rooting around a bunch in the sand, then obviously you should turn the filter off while you are doing that. But if somehow sand was getting sucked into your filter even when you weren't rooting around in the tank, I am not sure how that would be possible. Did you have some huge burrowing fishes thrashing around kicking up sand?

Were you using pool filter sand, or child's play sand? PFS is larger-grained and works much better in a tank than play sand, which can be very fine and much more easily kicked up.

I don't know what was wrong with my setup. I put in the sand and the decor like normal, and I don't have any kind of burrowing fish. The closest I would have, I think, are my albino cories. The sand actually blew out four filters - the original filter on my aquarium set up is a built in marineland biowheel, which is built into the hood of my Marineland Eclipse 3 tank. It's a great set up, IMO, but the intake for the filter reaches far down into the tank, with no option of shortening it without actually sawing the filter intake tube in half (I've done that before on Marineland filters, though). The sand trashed the original filter, too. It just ground the impellers to shreds, apparently.

As for what kind of sand I was using - I don't know. I bought it at PetSmart in the aquarium section. It was VERY fine sand. Conversely, I have black sand substrate in my 10 gallon aquarium and have never had a single problem with it. It's not as fine as the white sand. I would say the white sand was closer in consistency to children's play sand, while the black sand is denser.