Water Softener / Hard Water

[Bassetdad]

Hello Everybody,

I recently moved from an urban community to a rural community that has extremely hard water. My question is when I setup my 220-gallon aquarium do I use the hard water from the outside faucet, or do I fill the tank from an interior water spout which is filtered by an whole water softener system.

Thanks in Advance,

Bassetdad

 

[FroggyFox]

what kind of fish are you keeping?

Generally you'd want to use the water that doesn't have the softener on it, but you might be able to mix them...depends on what kind of chemistry you have going.

Do you have test kits?

 

[IDunnoWhy]

Yea I was always wondering about this too, Does my water softener salt add an undesired element to my tank water?

 

[TheFool]

It swaps one ion for aother that isn't Calcium I think. It doesn't actually really reduce dissolved solids at all, it just takes them from a form commonly measured to one that isn't. So it doesn't really matter what you do....

 

[Bassetdad]

When everything is finished I plan on having a 220 gallon flush mounted Cichlid tank in a finished basement with a storage room in the rear of the tank.I orginally had plan on filling the tank with hard water. Since I moved in, I have had three people tell me to fill the tank with water from the water softener. I thought I had better ask before I ignore their suggestions.

 

[FroggyFox]

Um yeah I believe it messes with the pH and obviously messes with the hardness of the water...so depending on the type of fish and the specific water chemistry it can matter a lot.

If you're planning on keeping cichlids (african) then I would personally definitely use the harder water, as hard water usually goes with higher pH that cichlids like.