Water Softener - OK for fish?

**Mikeg** · 02-21-2013, 06:45 PM

I have set up a 36 gallon tank that I have been using good well water to start the cycle with. PH 7.2 GH very hard 300, Alkalinity KH 140.

I plan on stocking it with a pair of angels, German blue Rams, a school of some sort of Tetras and possibly clown loaches. All these fish will do better in soft water. My Dad has city water with a whole house resin softener that tests out to PH 7.2 GH <5 KH 140.

Would it hurt to maybe do a mix of the soft water and well water to drive the hardness down?
I assume that I would still need to treat the city water for chlorine even being run thru a softener ???

**talldutchie** · 02-21-2013, 08:54 PM

1. Water going trough a resin softnerer isn't truly soft. You'd need reverse osmosis or rain water.
2. keeping angels in a 36 gallon is stretching things but no impossibleCombining them with blue rams is asking for trouble, especially in hard water. Throwing in clown loaches, a schooling species that grows to 10 inches full adult is bordering on animal abuse.
With angels you want a larger tetra or they will eat them

You're running a tank on liquid rock. Either deal with that or look into getting some shell dwellers.

I strongly suggest you read a few species profiles and take a look at recommended tank size, adult length and water needs.

**4Mike** · 02-22-2013, 01:22 AM

Very interesting about the breakdown of the softner/potassium Chloride. I do draw water from a well so I RO/DO the water after the softner. Does this take care of the Potassium problems?

**dmagerl** · 02-22-2013, 01:38 AM

I have angels and well water and a softener. I have no problems.

I cannot however mix raw well water with the softened water. Nor can I mix raw well water with RO water.

Whenever the raw well water is added to the tank I immediately get a big cloudy mess. Something precipitates out of the raw well water. I'm assuming its iron. So I would do a simple test. Take some RO water, take some raw well water and mix them in a bucket and see what happens.

BTW, I've used remineralized RO water and softened water and never noticed a difference between them in keeping anything alive.

**4Mike** · 02-22-2013, 01:49 AM

Very interesting. Our well water has lots of nasty s including salt water intrusion (live on ocean) arsenic, lots of minerals, sulfur gas, etc. I have been RO the water for some time and haven't seen any problems. Of course, when I add salt I refresh the water with all the things the RO strips, hopefully.

**Mikeg** · 02-22-2013, 03:07 PM

Well I did the mix of soft water and the well water at a 50/50 mix. It brought the GH down to 75 ppm from 300. KH,PH stayed the same. No cloudy water so I am good to go.

**Waterfroggy** · 03-14-2013, 02:12 AM

OK, thanks y'all. I've taken this all into consideration and am having a professional check our water. In the meantime I'm attacking the algae problem per the LFS with a siamese algae eater (who is apparently going to get too big for my tank and I will eventually have to take him back....sad, he's super cute) and a new ammonia thingy for my filter and some stuff called stability and I've pruned all the visible algae off the plants and treated the rocks with 35% hydrogen peroxide.
Now, we will have a proper water filter installed in the upcoming week.

Still I have one last question: The only black beard algae I haven't removed manually is on the backs of my two assassin snails. We don't have a snail problem anymore, haven't for a long time so I'm not sure what they're snacking on these days but they're alive and well and have BBA growing on the shells.

Should I leave them alone or try to pluck it off or? It seems pretty rude for me to try to clean their shells.

Help! And thanks for all the previous help!

Froggy