Limestone aquifer Liquid Eock

[Jsteiner]

Hi.  So happy to have the chance to post this question.   I am a beginner.  My 12 year old is really into learning about fish and I’ve joined him.  We are starting with a 20 gallon tank and going to learn from this before we jump up in size.  The issue is   We live off of a limestone aquifer well.  Our water is liquid rock.  It eats valves in our pipes.  We have a decent water treatment system with softener and an RO filter.  I can draw from any of these sources.  I know well water is ideal normally but I tested my gh and kh for hard and soft water   Hard water gh is well over what the API Max is at 320. Kh is well over max also.   Once the water goes through the softener gh is reduced to almost nothing but kh remains the same.   I have a lot of differing advice from fish stores and   I know I shouldn’t put African cichlids in a 20 gallon.    My hard water parameters look like brackish water if anything  pH is  consistent around 8.0   Which isnt a problem.  My question is what water to go with?  I’m open to whatever fish work best for the water and tank size. 

[face]

The simplest solution is to just use the water out of the tap and do guppy’s or shell dwellers or something like that if you have an RO unit you can probably keep whatever you want but you will need to mix the water before it goes in the aquarium 

what kind of tank are you looking for plants no plants community one species and so on there’s lots of options out there

[Jsteiner]

Hi thanks so much.  I will look into shell dwellers and guppies.  I was wanting to do plants and multi species but now I’m thinking shell dwellers and less plants 

[MWilk]

Plants do just fine in hard water. Your pH will drop after being in the aquarium for a little while. I have this same problem with one of my tanks, it’s at my parents farm in the kids’ play room and I just keep mixed neocaridina shrimp, white cloud minnows, a hillstream loach, and snails. 
 

My live bearer tank is at my house and I have to add gh and kh back to it.  So, it’s a good thing to have. 
 

if you have an RO unit, you can mix the water to achieve exact results you like. 

[Tony s]

On 9/3/2024 at 8:44 PM, Jsteiner said:

was wanting to do plants and multi species but now I’m thinking shell dwellers and less plants

Most plants will do fine in harder water. They love the additional calcium and magnesium. 
all live bearers will do well. As well as snails. You have a bit of extreme variety of normal water. The majority of water in the US is neutral to hard.  For a kids tank. Guppies platys mollies would make a great start. Then when you have those down. Mixing your water with your ro gives you a ton of options. 

[Jsteiner]

Hi thanks for the info   I thought about mixing my RO water  was just worried about the extra step  but should work out long term  if it’s been successful for others then I’d do that    

[Guppysnail]

Your water sounds like mine.  Livebearers do fabulously in our tap water.  If I use my water from my softner many Central American dwarf cichlids thrive for me.  All others I use some tap added to Ro water.  
Having the softner and RO you can keep everything.  It’s just a matter of mixing your water options to what you need. 
The plants that thrive most for me are all in tanks I use the tap RO mix. Moss, hornwort and tiger lily thrive in my tap only tanks. In my softener water most plants do fine but hornwort suffers.  
Good luck and I hope you update us on your choices and your tanks.