Soft Water

[lilaliend]

I recently have bought some Rams, one balloon ram and two regulars. I know they're pretty sensitive to water conditions, and require soft water with lower pH levels. I have them in a 10 galloon tank for the time being which is easy to control. I soften the water with a softener pillow from Aquarium Pharmaceuticals and keep the pH down with simple drops. It stays pretty stable. I'm working on moving them to my large 75 gallon tank though, after a few changes to the current residents. I just haven't figured out how to maintain the water yet.
The water pillows are two small for such a big tank, and I came across this AquaFX filter for running tap water thru, but I'm not trying to spend $250 on it.

This morning I had a sudden realization though.... Brita. We've been using a Brita pitcher for a long time now, and I know they say it removes 98-99% of pretty much EVERYTHING in the water, including chlorine. So I testing a cup of water from the pitcher, and it came out great. It had a hardness of 40, and Buffering capacity of near 0 (probably 10-15) and a pH of 6.4

To me I pretty much found the solution, using the tap filter on the faucet and using that water. I just want to know if anyone else as done this before.

Anyone??

 

[David]

No, but I might try that now since I have a brita filter and discus, which like soft acidic water. Thanks for that little tidbit of advice.

 

[lilaliend]

Yeah, it seems pretty much perfect for me. I'd much rather spend the $30 on one little thing that connects directly to my faucet rather then the $250 for the other big bulky thing that I have to by seperate connectors to use on the faucet... and disconnect and reconnect everytime I do my "frequent" water changes.

How are your loaches doing BTW?? I'm working on taking out the school of Tiger Bards and putting in a small school of clown loaches, but I read that they like to escape so I need to build a top for my tank. I'm going to have some red lily's in it so I need a clear top that adds height to the water so the flowers can grow.

I also have a huge snail problem, which the loaches should help.

 

[CFC]

The buffering capacity of 0 is going to cause big problems with pH swings, unstable water kills far more fish than the wrong water ever will. Unless you really have a good understanding of water chemistry and the relationships between GH KH and pH then i wouldnt suggest messing with it, even minute changes can severely stress fish.

A better option for pre filtering you water, and probably cheaper in the long run as Brita cartridges are spent easily and expensive, would be R/O water which can either be purchased from the LFS for around 15p per litre or you could invest £100 in your own unit which can produce 40 gallons a day (Look at the Kent Marine bare bones R/O unit). The water produced needs remineralising and re buffering before it can be used but this is easily done with Kent R/O right and Kent pH stable. Look at Kent Marine's home page HERE

To really get the water right for your rams i suggest the addition of some filter peat, this is a great artical which explains how to use peat and its effects far better than i ever could http/hjem.get2net.dk/Best_of_the_Web/peat%20page.html

 

[lilaliend]

Actually... that's exactly what I was looking for. I figured w/ that I should add peat, but didn't know much about it and haven't been able to find anything... thanks for the link.

 

[AmberC]

I've looked into using a filter myself. Look at how much water can go thru before you have to replace the filter on your tap. Its not worth it. I got an under the sink model that does FAR more than 100 gallons or 6 months. (I have a 55 gallon tank at 2 half changes per week... yeah thats not going to last long.)