Plants and water softeners

[Mroschmann573]

Will aquarium plants grow with water softener water as the main water source? I have had success with ryzhome plants in this water but I do not want to spend a ton of money on plants for future tanks if they are just going to die due to the water softener.

[Mmiller2001]

Softeners remove calcium and magnesium and replace them with salt. All negatives for plants.

[Lennie]

I have water softener system in my house too. Plants grow great in my tanks. I also keep Mystery, rabbit, MTS and ramshorn snails as well as neocaridina shrimps. No problem in my case. I assume the amount of salt should be very minimal, if any. But I have never tested it, so take this with a grain of "salt" 😄

Also I don't know if it changes from one system to another.

I also increase my gh again with the Equilibrium based on the species I keep in that tank. Because it reads 0 otherwise. Which is bad.

I personally am not a fan of the system, but it does not noticably affect anything negatively in my tanks from my experience. I just deal with what I have to tbf.

@lefty o seems to have a water softener too. Maybe they would like to share their experience as well

[lefty o]

i have no issues with plants and a water softener. plants can tolerate way way more salt than a water softener  will ever introduce into the water. and if one really doesnt want water from their softener, ive never seen a water softener that didnt have a bypass on its head. push the bypass valve over, run a few gallons to flush the pipe out, and you have non softened water. folks make way too big of a deal over water softeners. 

[Mroschmann573]

Thanks Lennie, I have rock water where I live so the softener is needed for the water running through my pipes. I will test the gh out of the tap. PH is still high and kh is still over 300 after softener. 

[Lennie]

On 3/25/2023 at 5:27 PM, Mroschmann573 said:

Thanks Lennie, I have rock water where I live so the softener is needed for the water running through my pipes. I will test the gh out of the tap. PH is still high and kh is still over 300 after softener. 

Yea. While my gh drops to 0, my kh reads 20 and ph reads around 8.0. So they are both pretty high in my case as well.

The problem with that is topping up the water, so potentially kh is accumilating. I also have an RO system at home, so I always top up my tanks with RO water. I do make water change with %50 tap, %50 RO in my tanks lately, but the new one I got is bigger, so I assume I won't be able to do that on that one. My RO system is crazy slow! I will see how it will go.

I have no lids tho, so I have much more evaporation in my case compared to people who have lids on their tanks.