soft water

will74

will74

AC Members
Mar 4, 2007
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Kentucky
Help! My tap water is about 7.8 and I need a natural way to soften my water without spending alot of money. I am going to keep zebra plecos and they need really soft water, so if anybody has any suggestions please share them with me, I would greatly appreciate it
Thanks, Will:help:
 
Driftwood would be the easiest, but peat moss works if you watch your pH attentively. Also using RO water when replacing the water after a maintenance check.
 
Driftwood helps, go along a river or lake, find some you like, boil, boil, boil, scrub, scrub, scrub (no soaps of any kind), weight it down in the tank. I tied mine to rock with fishing line, or you could attach it to slate with aquarium silicone.
 
Do you know the GH and KH of your water? If it is high in total disolved solids the driftwood probably will not lower the Ph much if at all. Adding RO or distilled water to the tap water that you put in the tank is the sure way to lower the GH/KH and make it easier to bring the PH down.
 
What about rain water? Maybe runoff from an outbuilding roof or just collected in buckets? Filtered with carbon of course to remove any coating chemicals used on the shingles. And also to remove any particles in the water?
 
will74 said:
What about rain water? Maybe runoff from an outbuilding roof or just collected in buckets? Filtered with carbon of course to remove any coating chemicals used on the shingles. And also to remove any particles in the water?
Click to expand...

It is alot safer to use R/O water than rainwater.
 
Driftwood has limited affect unless it is and extreme amount in a small tank.

I would use a combination of peat and RO, created in a seperate container so uou can get it to the consistent levels you will need for water changes. The GH/KH will be more of an issue for monitoring.
 
Rainwater works for me. Mine always measures 6.8 ph and 0 for GH and KH. Maybe that could vary if you live downwind from a major pollution source.
 
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