Watersoftner for fishroom

[KristofferA]

Hallo

In the next couple of months i'll be starting a fish room from scratch.

I will be keeping mostly fancy plecos and other south american fish and were i live we have liquid rock out of the tap.

I'm thinking about getting a small watersoftner only for the fish room, but the amount of sodium content in water scares me.

My gh is around 20 out of the tap and i would like to end up between 4-6 gh.

 

I have a reserve osmosis system right now, but the though of having a huge barrel to mix the water into, isn't very practical

when i wanna make an automatic drain and fill system for the tanks.

 

Is there other easier ways to soften the water or is the sodium content in the water not a problem?

I would be gratefull for any suggestion or advice.

 

Regards Kristoffer

 

 

 

 

 

[Guppysnail]

This depends entirely on the type of fish you eventually wish to keep. The salt is minimal I have kept species with a softner with zero issues. It actually exchanges ions (I’m not sciencey so can’t give in depth info) salt replaces calcium and magnesium. Snails and some shrimp I know struggle with soft water. 

[Biotope Biologist]

RO will be your best bet. I am confused as to why you would need a mixing barrel though? If you don't think you will have enough room for a holding tank, you can run the water into the sump and have a control valve to shut off water. This system will be a lot easier than worrying about sodium levels which amazon fish are quite sensitive to. They at most see about 5 mg/l sodium in their native habitat, and a lot of species are still wild caught.

 

Having lots of organic matter and wood in the displays and sump will acidify the water and since black water is relatively devoid of calcium and magnesium you don't have to worry about adding it back in. You may have to add back carbonate salts depending on what species you intend to keep, but that will be up to your own research. 

 

The University of Amazon state and Duke did water studies in several regions. Page 4 table 1 is a great resource for where you want water parameters to be:

https://www.witpress.com/Secure/elibrary/papers/WS13/WS13002FU1.pdf

[Torrey]

On 9/29/2021 at 12:32 PM, Biotope Biologist said:

The University of Amazon state and Duke did water studies in several regions. Page 4 table 1 is a great resource for where you want water parameters to be:

https://www.witpress.com/Secure/elibrary/papers/WS13/WS13002FU1.pdf

Thank you!

[Andy's Fish Den]

I would stay away from the water softener. I had one in my old house and struggled to keep many fish and plants alive, until I started using water that bypassed the softener. I have quite water, runs between 15-20 out of my tap and have no trouble keeping most fish. I do have an RO unit that I use occasionally to cut down my tap water, such as when I imported some fish from Peru and Brazil, but I then over a couple months worth of water changes bring them into straight tap water. All of those fish currently are in 100% pure tap water, and that included discus, corydoras, and plecos. I will use part RO water when I try to spawn them, along with Indian almond leaves, and oak leaves to bring down pH and hardness levels. 

[lefty o]

some fish may not like it, but so very little salt makes its way into the water from a softener that it is not worth even worrying about.