Up for debate. What is the best route to go for water to use for a freshwater tank. I know that there will be better options for different species of fish, but in general, for your typical freshwater tropical fish, what is the best choice? My son and I have some different opinions. I would just use regular tap water. Let me preface this by saying, we have well water. We have a salt water softener. We do have a kitchen cold water faucet that is not hooked up to the softener as well as the hose. My son would like to bypass the water softener for water change days, use up all the hot, softened water with showering and then use a python to direct fill the tanks with precise temperature water, then turn the softener back on. I want to keep it simple, fill buckets with cold, unsoftened water and then heat to the appropriate temp. None of our tanks are huge. The biggest is 55 gallon. What is the best way to go for a healthy aquarium? Either of these options? Or should we buy RO water from the store? We have been doing that as well. Looking to learn more about this and keep it as simple as possible. Thanks in advance for your opinions.