Water softener and well water
- Thread starter PooCooper
- Start date
However, and this is just a however, it's going to depend on whether you are keeping your fish in the well water or the softened water. If you keep fish in 100% softened water, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. You will need to get into adding back minerals, calcium and magnesium, that the softener just removed. On the other hand, straight well water might be too hard, that's why you're using a softener for household purposes. I would recommend, if you have one spigot somewhere (such as an outdoor hose) that is inline before the softener, mixing well and softened water. This is what my brother does. Experiment, and check hardness, until you come up with a good blend. Fortunately, the compostion of well waters are usually very stable, so once you find an ideal mixture, you shouldn't have to check it after that, unless you have some natural catastrophe that makes you suspicious of the well water.
HTH
judy
HTH
judy
Also be aware that water softening systems also can affect ph. I used to live in a home that had acidic hard water, and therefore we had a treatment system that took care of the acid, and then took care of the iron....you see where this is going? The ph straight from the tap was in the neighborhood of 8.9, which is not really a great one for anything other than a few cichlid species. I had to buy bottled water because of this....(then again, I only used the tap water for bathing anyhow, it tasted terrible...)
Just be sure to check the parameters of your well water before you fill your tank with it....
Just be sure to check the parameters of your well water before you fill your tank with it....
It all depends on what kind of softening you're using.
Check with your agent to see whether you can replace the sodium chloride ("salt") in your unit with potassium chloride (KCl). It's a little more expensive, but that potassium ion is harmless (and used by plants) while the sodium ion is stressful and mildly toxic.
Check with your agent to see whether you can replace the sodium chloride ("salt") in your unit with potassium chloride (KCl). It's a little more expensive, but that potassium ion is harmless (and used by plants) while the sodium ion is stressful and mildly toxic.
