Opinions on going RO in my situation?

[WishyFishy]

I have well water that is very hard so it is treated through a salt-based water softener. I'm wondering if it wouldn't be worth it to go 100% RO water for my 13gal, currently my only tank. I don't really mind keeping harder water species but the problem is my tap has added salt and removed calcium and magnesium from the softener. Nowhere in the house has unsoftened water including the outside hose 😞

 

My tap parameters today were:

 

17 drops KH 

pH 8.2-8.4--in the middle of those colors 

8.0 ammonia (I believe this is due to chlorine bleach used to clean the well water)

0 nitrite 

0 nitrate 

18-19 GH drops

 

50:50 mix of tap & water I bought

pH 8.0-8.2 in between colors  

KH started to turn at 11 greeny teal 

Would’ve turned all the way at 12 but I dropped it haha

GH 9-10 drops

 

Would it be worth it for one tank? I would like to get a larger tank eventually but for now I only have one. I could buy RO or distilled by the gallon, add minerals, and eventually set up RO in my house. Would this be worth it? I am unsure because I don't mind my water being hard but the salt and ca&mg problems give me a pause. I can bypass the softener, but then there is the issue of residual salt still getting in. Thoughts?

[Theplatymaster]

@KittenFishMomhas some experience on RO water.

[ColBud]

Sounds like you have the tank already… if you also have all the other equipment why not set up the tank and run it with your tap water and test a few of the plants you want to keep. If things work well great go further if not adjust from there. 
I assume you are concerned about plants not live stock…

sorry if you were asking about the ammonia my brain skipped that part

Edited March 7, 2023 by ColBud

[Theplatymaster]

On 3/7/2023 at 4:29 PM, WishyFishy said:

 

8.0 ammonia

you could run some ammonia remover in your filter.

like a ammonia filter pad.

[Lennie]

My water system is the same for the whole house. I add minerals to the water with equilibrium as my gh reads 0 from tap. Other than that, I have not faced any problem until today.

I have so many snails, fish, plant and shrimp. No problems at all. I think the amount of salt must be minimal, if there is any? Why do you wanna go RO?

Have you faced any issues?

Edited March 7, 2023 by Lennie

[Theplatymaster]

On 3/7/2023 at 5:19 PM, Lennie said:

Why do you wanna go RO?

 

On 3/7/2023 at 4:29 PM, WishyFishy said:

 

8.0 ammonia

 

[Lennie]

No clue how 8.0 ammonia is ending up in the system ngl

[Theplatymaster]

@WishyFishy what test kit are you using?

[anewbie]

You could do ro water; but with an aquarium that is 13 gallons another alternative would be rain water. You might need to make it harder (as you would ro water); depending on the fishes you keep. Be aware that if you do use rain water and you have tar roof on your home (some homes have slate and similar that won't harm the water); you will not want to collect roof water but rather have a pail that collect rain directly. Also if you live in a neighborhood with managed lawns you probably want to avoid run off as it can contain pesticide and similar. 

[KittenFishMom]

If you shocked the well with bleach, you might be getting ammonia reading.  It takes using the water for a while to get all of it out of all the pipes.

We put an RO/DI system in for drinking and tank water at the cottage.

We have a salt based softener at our house. we have hard water outdoor taps for watering plants. We also have out door hot and cold soft water tapes for cleaning things, like grungy stuff, like a dog that went swimming in a gross pond. 

RO/DI water is like distilled water.  You could use bottled RO or distilled water on a temporary bases to see if you like it.

I also think you can get the ammonia to drop by storing it in a big tub with a heater and and air bubbler and air cirulating over the surface. This also helps with sulfur water.

No one in our cottages neighborhood drinks their well water. You either carry it in, or get an RO system for drinking water.

 

Edited March 8, 2023 by KittenFishMom

[KittenFishMom]

My father helped us with the plumbing at our house. We have soft hot water and hard cold water lines running to the kitchen sink. The soft hot water cleans better, the hard cold water is better to drink. The cold water comes from the water line before it gets to the softener. The line then goes to the softenr and the hot water heater. Most of the hot and cold in the house is soft, but we ran cold hard water to the outside in places and the kitchen sink. We are not "by pass" or swtiching the softener off. we just have a lot of pipes in the basment.  We can water plants and the lawn with hard cold water and wash the car with hot and cold soft water. It depends on what we are using the water for as to which tap we use.

[KittenFishMom]

P.S. I want to use a hot water line for the toilet to recue condenastion.  The toilets are low water usage, so the water is room temp until the toilet tank is full.  Just haven't gotten that far.

[Fish Folk]

Ammonia skies easily when pH is high. Reef tanks run into this. You might get away with keeping some rare Tanganyikan shell dwellers from your tap water. You’ll just need a serious colony of bacteria to crush that nitrogen cycle. Look into Lamprologus or Julidochromis… 

Edited March 8, 2023 by Fish Folk

[jwcarlson]

Your well water sounds quite similar to my tap water (18-20 for both GH and KH, pH ages to 8.3).  I don't have ammonia like that, but I'm wondering how real that reading is, to be honest.  Make sure you confirm that.

I keep discus in my tap water.  My opinion is that unless you're keeping something wild caught or trying to breed fish, you shouldn't necessarily be worried about a lot of those numbers.  Except the ammonia... that's an issue.

I, too, do not understand the bleach causing an ammonia reading.  Unless you're saying there's a lot of chlorine and you used a dechlorinator before testing.  In that case, I think that can result in ammonia readings.

Edited March 8, 2023 by jwcarlson

[Fish Folk]

On 3/7/2023 at 9:14 PM, jwcarlson said:

Unless you're saying there's a lot of chlorine and you used a dechlorinator before testing.  In that case, I think that can result in ammonia readings.

Excellent observation! This makes sense.

[WishyFishy]

On 3/7/2023 at 4:42 PM, Pepere said:

Curious as to how bleach would cause well water to show Ammonia.

I think it's the test picking up on ammonium and not ammonia-- don't quote me on that though I need to read up on it more. Or I have bigger problems. I'll test it again in a few days in case I did something wrong or there was a fluctuation or something. I'll also try and find out exactly what's getting added into the water to treat it.

On 3/7/2023 at 4:42 PM, ColBud said:

Sounds like you have the tank already… if you also have all the other equipment why not set up the tank and run it with your tap water and test a few of the plants you want to keep. If things work well great go further if not adjust from there. 
I assume you are concerned about plants not live stock…

sorry if you were asking about the ammonia my brain skipped that part

It's okay, I was asking about both! I do keep plants though I am a beginner with them and noticed they have..failed to thrive. I have some kind of anubias, rotala, foxtail and monte carlo I added about a week ago. I expect the monte carlo to die off I just thought I'd give it a shot haha. The plants are alive but not doing great and I was thinking the softener could have something to do with it.

On 3/7/2023 at 4:50 PM, Theplatymaster said:

you could run some ammonia remover in your filter.

like a ammonia filter pad.

I will check that out!

 

[WishyFishy]

Breaking up the replies so they aren't super long.

On 3/7/2023 at 5:23 PM, Lennie said:

No clue how 8.0 ammonia is ending up in the system ngl

On 3/7/2023 at 6:59 PM, Pepere said:

That 8 ppm ammonia is perplexing from a well.

 

honestly I would be trying to first confirm it.  I would not be wanting to regularly consuming water with 8 ppm ammonia in it.  If it is accurste I would probably be thinking of a reverse osmosis unit for my drinking and cooking water.

I am not aware of how bleach can raise ammonia levels.  I understand how chloramine when treated with dechlorinators can liberate ammonia.

On 3/7/2023 at 8:13 PM, KittenFishMom said:

If you shocked the well with bleach, you might be getting ammonia reading.  It takes using the water for a while to get all of it out of all the pipes.

We put an RO/DI system in for drinking and tank water at the cottage.

We have a salt based softener at our house. we have hard water outdoor taps for watering plants. We also have out door hot and cold soft water tapes for cleaning things, like grungy stuff, like a dog that went swimming in a gross pond. 

RO/DI water is like distilled water.  You could use bottled RO or distilled water on a temporary bases to see if you like it.

I also think you can get the ammonia to drop by storing it in a big tub with a heater and and air bubbler and air cirulating over the surface. This also helps with sulfur water.

No one in our cottages neighborhood drinks their well water. You either carry it in, or get an RO system for drinking water.

 

On 3/7/2023 at 7:08 PM, Theplatymaster said:

@WishyFishy what test kit are you using?

I am not 100% sure how the super high ammonia reading is getting there either. I'm not sure what actually gets put into the tap before we use it, I'm not the person in the household usually doing that haha. I will look into it more and retest. I'm using a pretty new, unexpired API master test kit.

 

 

[Lennie]

On 3/8/2023 at 6:07 AM, WishyFishy said:

honestly I would be trying to first confirm it.  I would not be wanting to regularly consuming water with 8 ppm ammonia in it.  If it is accurste I would probably be thinking of a reverse osmosis unit for my drinking and cooking water.

I am not aware of how bleach can raise ammonia levels.  I understand how chloramine when treated with dechlorinators can liberate ammonia.

I’ve tested my water too for you. To see if it is anything system related. I could not see any ammonia/ammonium. Maybe it is our system being different. It sounds like a good idea to find what is causing it.

hope you can find the source

[KittenFishMom]

I am doing water changes and was getting mixed up. Chlorine bleach will not produce ammonia. I was thinking that chlorine burns gills and ammonia burn gills and you test for both.  And chlorine stays in pipes a long time after a well is shocked. We have ammonia in our well.  I think it is from the decaying plant matter that has been gathering at this end of the lake. It can also come from farm run off contaminating your well.  If you don't know why your well has high ammonia, FIND OUT WHY. Call the county board of health.

[WishyFishy]

On 3/7/2023 at 7:11 PM, anewbie said:

You could do ro water; but with an aquarium that is 13 gallons another alternative would be rain water. You might need to make it harder (as you would ro water); depending on the fishes you keep. Be aware that if you do use rain water and you have tar roof on your home (some homes have slate and similar that won't harm the water); you will not want to collect roof water but rather have a pail that collect rain directly. Also if you live in a neighborhood with managed lawns you probably want to avoid run off as it can contain pesticide and similar. 

I'll look into collecting rainwater! That would probably be a good idea and the tip about the tar roof is helpful, I wouldn't have known that. No managed lawns, farming area here so that's still a possibility.

On 3/7/2023 at 8:48 PM, Fish Folk said:

Ammonia skies easily when pH is high. Reef tanks run into this. You might get away with keeping some rare Tanganyikan shell dwellers from your tap water. You’ll just need a serious colony of bacteria to crush that nitrogen cycle. Look into Lamprologus or Julidochromis… 

Those would be really neat, I have looked into them a little bit. I'm loosely planning a 20 or 29 gal so I will definitely look into them more, I hear they have pretty neat behaviors.

On 3/7/2023 at 9:14 PM, jwcarlson said:

Your well water sounds quite similar to my tap water (18-20 for both GH and KH, pH ages to 8.3).  I don't have ammonia like that, but I'm wondering how real that reading is, to be honest.  Make sure you confirm that.

I keep discus in my tap water.  My opinion is that unless you're keeping something wild caught or trying to breed fish, you shouldn't necessarily be worried about a lot of those numbers.  Except the ammonia... that's an issue.

I, too, do not understand the bleach causing an ammonia reading.  Unless you're saying there's a lot of chlorine and you used a dechlorinator before testing.  In that case, I think that can result in ammonia readings.

Yes, very similar. I'm definitely checking the ammonia again. I'm not sure what actually gets put in the tap when it comes inside, I was told it was "chlorine bleach" so I'll figure out what we actually put in there. I didn't dechlorinate before testing the water, I had a sample in a plastic cup for a few days to get a more accurate pH reading so I took water from that.

Thank you to everyone who replied! I'll look into the ammonia, it is definitely concerning. I don't know a ton about how my household's water softener/treatment systems work so it's theoretically possible it's from that or the well itself could have a problem. I'll look into testing the well too.

[nabokovfan87]

On 3/7/2023 at 1:29 PM, WishyFishy said:

I have well water that is very hard so it is treated through a salt-based water softener. I'm wondering if it wouldn't be worth it to go 100% RO water for my 13gal, currently my only tank. I don't really mind keeping harder water species but the problem is my tap has added salt and removed calcium and magnesium from the softener. Nowhere in the house has unsoftened water including the outside hose 😞

being on a well, RO is good to have in my view because of risk of pesticides or seasonal things seriously impacting your water.  I would have a holding tank and have a full setup.  If you can't commit space to that, then RO doesn't make sense.

You'd want to get a pipe before the water softener (that stuff used to soften water can mess up your tank) and then add the RO system in at that point. 

[jwcarlson]

On 3/7/2023 at 9:27 PM, nabokovfan87 said:

You'd want to get a pipe before the water softener (that stuff used to soften water can mess up your tank) and then add the RO system in at that point. 

I did a ton of reading and "everyone" said to put the RO after the softener as it will extend membrane life.  That's what I did for mine and my apistos are still kicking. 

[nabokovfan87]

On 3/7/2023 at 7:37 PM, jwcarlson said:

I did a ton of reading and "everyone" said to put the RO after the softener as it will extend membrane life.  That's what I did for mine and my apistos are still kicking. 

I mean, yeah, that makes sense and can be helpful.  I tend to not want the "other stuff" in there and specifically filter out things in 5-7 stage setups.  I don't trust 3, but I hear ya.  Should work on either side.  at the end it should be RO.  If you're talking RODI.... yeah, after the softener.

 

[WishyFishy]

Retested my tap's ammonia and got .25ppm. Whew! I also tested a bottle of distilled I have sitting around as a control, which came up 0. I'll test the ammonia again just to make sure.

Any opinions on the salt from the softener/lack of calcium and magnesium? Is it worth going RO if I can bypass the softener? I'm leaning toward going RO but I'd love to see what people think about the softener itself.

Thanks to everyone who has responded so far, you've all been very helpful!