soft water

[missyt]

Hi,
I have 4 tanks, 1-30;2-55;1-100, i have cichlids and community fish, how is this water softener going to effect my fish, I have asked around and found no answers yet. Anything will help. Thanks

 

[breezer40]

Hi

Why do you want soft water?..I am only just getting into cichlids but from what I have read most like hard water.

 

[missyt]

my husband wanted the soft water. I was just worried what it is gonna do to all my fishys!

 

[breezer40]

If they are cichlids chances are they will want harder water...if you change the water to soft you could end up with dead fish

 

[clutterydrawer]

hang on, that depends on the cichlids.

waht do you mean, your husband wants water softener? he jsut randomly said "hey, the fish could do with a change, let's soften their water?"

If you change the water chemistry suddenly they'll get stressed and possibly get ill/die. depends how drastic the change is though.

 

[missyt]

ok, the soft water is for the house! We still have a "hard water" faucet outside. The water changes will be slow, so the fish don't get stressed out. I have africian and texas cichlids. I just didn't know if the fish could survive in soft water. I guess I will find out.

 

[Dubby]

Once you have found out if your fish prefer soft water, you can gradually acclimatise them. And if they prefer hard water, you have the good old drinking water tap, I guess.

I presume you will not be drinking the softened water. I read somewhere that the govt deliberately doesnt soften water as hard water is beneficial for the heart.

 

[CFC]

Comercial water softeners are not suitable for fish keeping use as the ion exchange salts that are used to soften the water can be harmful to aquatic life, also as said it is not recomended to drink water that has been through a comercial water softener. I would presume that the softener is being fitted just to the hot water system and not your mains coldwater so you have nothing to worry about.

 

[Dubby]

Comercial water softeners are not suitable for fish keeping

Thats a good point CFC. Didnt strike me !!

 

[missyt]

The water softener we put in does use salt for the regeneration, but bought a kit and tested the water and it shows NO SALT in the water. I have done water changes 2 days ago, and 1 tank full water change and all fish doing well. So I guess I will just see what happens and let you all know. I can always switch back to hard water if problems occur. The water softener is attached to the main inline to the house, i have a hard water socket outside.

 

[missyt]

Just thought I would let you all know, I have had no fish die, and I have pretty much got all my tanks in soft water now. the only problem I am having is the ph is high in 1 of my tanks. It has baby cichlids in it. It also has cloudy water that I can't seem to get rid of. Maybe it is from the ph netural I put in? Don't know, I am just glad all my fishy friends are doing great!

 

[leafs]

I also have a water softener in my house and my fish seem to do well. One thing I was wondering about is that my ph is over 7.8, shouldn't the water softener lower the ph? I'm a little confused.

 

[gale]

We have soft water too, except the kitchen tap. I use it to fill my tanks so they actually get a combination of hard and soft, because our hard water is VERY hard. Off the charts and leaves a yucky hard white film on the inside of the tanks. No problems so far other than losing a bn pleco which may or may not have been due to water chemistry. btw our ph is high too even though the water is softened.

A water softener actually puts very very little salt in the water. Certainly not enough so that you can taste it. Here's a link that shows how they work:

http/champion.cribley.com/chhowto.htm

 

[Yenko]

South American cichlids like softwater; african cichlids like hardwater.

 

[JamesTasker]

The water softener we put in does use salt for the regeneration, but bought a kit and tested the water and it shows NO SALT in the water. I have done water changes 2 days ago, and 1 tank full water change and all fish doing well. So I guess I will just see what happens and let you all know. I can always switch back to hard water if problems occur. The water softener is attached to the main inline to the house, i have a hard water socket outside.

The 'salt' you add isn't sodium chloride. There is a lot of sulphur but I'm not quite sure what else. Don't use comercially softened water in your aquarium, use the hard water from whichever tap isn't softened.