Terrible Well Water

[Mark Knutson]

I have been keeping fish and plants in our well water here for 7 years. Until recently my plants either die or don't grow in my aquariums or pond. I have started to mix distilled water into my aquariums and my plants have started to grow better.  The trouble is my pond holds too much water to try mixing distilled water in it.  I believe my well water has a  high ph and is very hard.  Anybody have any ideas how I can treat my pond water so I can grow plants in my pond also?  Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.  Mark

[gardenman]

Rain water should help your pond. Assuming you're legally allowed to divert rain water from your gutters to your pond in your location. Rain water is typically pretty much mineral free and typically a lower ph. If your pond is in the ground (as most are, unlike mine) it's pretty easy to divert water from a downspout in the direction of the pond. The easiest method is to simply roll out some plastic from the downspout to the pond and then put something under each edge of the plastic to help guide the water to your pond. Pool noodles, a few 2X4s, the dead bodies of the rainwater police, anything can be put under the edges of the plastic to help form a channel for the rainwater to move down towards the pond. Roofs can collect an absurd amount of water in a rainstorm. I have two 110 gallon troughs, and 60 gallons of trash cans collecting rain water and all were empty about ten days ago and all are full now and we've just had a little rain in that time. It's pretty impressive the amount of water that comes off our roofs. The 110 gallon troughs were empty as the PVC pipe I used to connect them didn't survive the winter this year. If you've never seen shattered PVC pipe before, it's pretty impressive how extensive the damage was. They were fine last winter despite many days of sub-freezing weather, but this year, they decided they'd had enough. They've now been replaced with some new fittings and a garden hose that's supposedly rated to survive minus 40 degrees. If it gets that cold I'll be dead, so I don't think I'll be worried about the hose surviving.

[Mark Knutson]

Thanks for the idea but I don't have gutters so I don't think it would work in my case

[Anita]

1 hour ago, Mark Knutson said:

I have been keeping fish and plants in our well water here for 7 years. Until recently my plants either die or don't grow in my aquariums or pond. I have started to mix distilled water into my aquariums and my plants have started to grow better.  The trouble is my pond holds too much water to try mixing distilled water in it.  I believe my well water has a  high ph and is very hard.  Anybody have any ideas how I can treat my pond water so I can grow plants in my pond also?  Thanks in advance for any advice you can give me.  Mark

A Reverse Osmosis (R.O.) system would remove all minerals from your well water. Depending on how handy you are, one of the cheapest solutions would be building a solar still that produces distilled water. There are lots of DIY plans around. There are also solar still kits. 

Please note, I have not personally used any of these and I am not endorsing these particular links. Just trying to give you some ideas to get started. 😎 You will need to figure out how much water you need, so you can buy or build a big enough system. 

Before you invest a bunch of time and money, however, I suggest you test your water to make sure that hardness is the cause of the problem. Unfortunately, well water can become contaminated with agricultural, construction, mining, or industrial runoff. In some places in the Western United States, the salt (NaCl) concentration increases as more and more water gets drawn out of the ground for farming.