Types of Water to use for your tank. An analysis.
- Thread starter n00b2fish
- Start date
Jill-O
All American Girl (all grown up)
I haven't read through the whole thread. We have well water here that is really good (tastes like spring water) and that's what we use for our fish. I think if you want to use bottled water for your water changes, that's probably just fine. My only advice is to just have some water conditioner on hand in case some kind of odd emergency happens where you'd want to do a water change on the spur of the moment and not have bottles handy.
I had my tank water checked yesterday before I did a PWC and (sorry I didn't write down the numbers, but...) there was a little Ammonia, no Nitrite, but a little Nitrate. I'm beginning to think it's gotta be the bottled water. This is definitely getting interesting. Also, I noticed that the info for the Arrowhead water may be wrong because they changed the info. It's now listed as:
[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans serif]Water Analysis
*(Mg/l=milligrams per liter)
*(PP/l=pints per liter)
Bicarbonates: 17-190 PPM
Calcium Ion: ND-52 PPM
Fluoride: ND-1.4 PPM
Magnesium: 1.3-19 PPM
Potassium: 0.69-3.6 PPM
Sulfates: 0.71-26 PPM
Sodium: 2.6-16 PPM
Total Dissolved Solids: 28-250 Mg/l *(except TDS which are parts per million)
Other Principal Components: Nitrate 0. PPM
[/FONT]
Anyway, I think I used the bottled water for the last time and I'll be dechlorinating my tap water by letting it sit out for a day before using it.
[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans serif]Water Analysis
*(Mg/l=milligrams per liter)
*(PP/l=pints per liter)
Bicarbonates: 17-190 PPM
Calcium Ion: ND-52 PPM
Fluoride: ND-1.4 PPM
Magnesium: 1.3-19 PPM
Potassium: 0.69-3.6 PPM
Sulfates: 0.71-26 PPM
Sodium: 2.6-16 PPM
Total Dissolved Solids: 28-250 Mg/l *(except TDS which are parts per million)
Other Principal Components: Nitrate 0. PPM
[/FONT]
Anyway, I think I used the bottled water for the last time and I'll be dechlorinating my tap water by letting it sit out for a day before using it.
Maybe I missed something but why not just use a commercial dechlorinator? As far as I know just chlorine, not chloramine, will dissipate when aged.
correct you can only air out chlorine, not chloromine. then when you treat the chloromine you get ammonia.
You really should get some dechlorinator like Prime or Amquel Plus. Even if your water provider does not use chloromine they could start adding it without warning. Most agencies use it now.
I HAVE been using AmQuel+... everyone just didn't like the use of bottled wah wah. That was the original problem. I'm switching to tap water and I'm still going to put some AmQuel+ in it before PWCs. The 'airing it out for a day' also does another thing... allows the water to match the room temperature, which in our house is usually around 72-73. Back in the day, I used to use the hose outside for my 20 gallon and I'm sure that was too cold.
I promise you all I'll get this right.
I promise you all I'll get this right.
