Aquarium filled with softened water from a water softner

[CAPSLOCK]

Why not get a bucket / holding tank / brute trash can and add a typical heater to it to prewarm water for water changes? Basically the same thing saltwater people have to do, except without mixing in salt. I use a 5g bucket for my normal w/c for my SW tank, or a spare 10g tank for a larger change occasionally. I only add a heater in the winter.

If it is a fairly reasonable size water change (maybe up to 20-25%) and the house isn't super frigid, you could just sit the bucket next to the tank overnight and room temp water would be fine for the change, even in winter. Assuming no ridiculously sensitive warm water fish like discus. A lot of fish may even be tempted to spawn when you use cooler water for the w/c.

 

[MichaudL]

Hi, this is a good thread of information about hard water and water softeners. I have a 16 g tank at home that I am filling with water from our house (water softener water): the GH is 0 and the pH is 8.0 if not treated with a pH product to lower it. I also have a 10 g tank from school (with school "town" water in it): the GH is 180 and pH is 7.5.

(Full 5in1 results are: 1. Big tank: General hardness 0 (not good says DANGER - our water goes through softener), Carbonate Hardness 240 (ideal), pH around 8.0, Nitrite 0 (ideal), Nitrate 0 (ideal). 2. Small tank: General hardness 180 (ideal), Carbonate hardness 120 (ideal), pH 7.5 (ideal for goldfish), Nitrite 0 (ideal), Nitrate 40 (ideal).)

I had two goldfish in the smaller tank at school, moved them to bigger tank at home, long story, but one goldfish died (fin rot) -- other goldfish did not look well in the bigger tank a week after other fish died. I moved him to the smaller tank and he was instantly (well overnight) swimming around happily vs. sitting at bottom of bigger tank. I did try treating the sick goldfish with Tetracycline (but then later read it would not have been effective if pH was higher than 7.5).

I am looking for information on whether I should be adding minerals to the bigger tank (API sells a ELECTRO-RIGHT product that puts back minerals and electrolytes into the water) and whether I should be adding something for pH. I'm a little confused about the talk about buffers -- not sure if the ELECTRO-RIGHT would do anything, as I'm not sure exactly about the chemistry of the water softened water.

I have read that the softened water (GH 0) is bad for fish; I would like to get my tank right so I can eventually add more fish.

Thanks for any info!

 

[FatCatFishGuy]

This is the most informative post I've seen yet but still doesn't totally answer my question about water from a water softener I guess. I have a 65 gallon planted aquarium with two koi angels ,a gold gourami ,an angel ram , two yoyo loaches ,two bristlenose pleckos , a sailfin molly and 8 zebra danios . We just had a water softener installed because our water was terribly hard and I'm scared to do a water change now.I keep hearing it's bad for them but I'm not sure. I don't want to shorten the life of my fish in any way. I'm wondering if I slowly add the water in over longer time if that might be best.