Tap Water Question?

[ilwayne]

I'm planning to start a new tank and considering the luck I've had, I wanted to check and see what kind of water parameters were acceptable. I'm not finding anything out there about the subject. My tap water, straight from the faucet, doesn't seem to be the best in the world. It maxes out my test kit on most things...pH 8.4, KH 300, GH 300, nitrite 1.0, nitrate 30, and amonia 1 ppm. Since water conditioner will only remove chlorine, chloramine, and the like but not actually deal with the fact that amonia and nitrates are present, I was wondering about the possibility of using bottled water to start the tank? Is that advisable? If so, what KIND of bottled water? I've had terrible luck with fish mysteriously dying even while the water tested fine, I've got awful algae problems, and I'm generally uneasy about my aquarium keeping skills.

TIA,
Mari

 

[wodesorel]

Have you tried to treat the water and then retest it? Those parameters do not sound normal in any way... It could be that whatever chemicals they're adding to the city water could be reacting with the chemicals in the test kits. Prime is a great water conditioner, and works on Nitrite and well as Ammonia, Clorine, and Cloramine.

 

[ilwayne]

I added some Tetra AquaSafe and retested and it came out the same, so I went and got some different kinds of bottled water, tested them all, and wound up using distilled water. I started the fishless cycle yesterday, so here's hoping.

 

[MHunt]

Distilled is pure water, completely! Nothing else. You may actually find that it doesn't contain some natural minerals that fish will find helpful.

Your tap water sounds pretty nasty, but a cycled tank would break down the ammonia and nitrite anyway. But a PH of 8.4, and high hardness. It sounds almost like seawater!

You could try using Reverse Osmosis or RO water, that removes most harmful chemicals, but leaves some of the beneficial minerals that your fish need. You could also colect rain water from a water butt. These both have a lower ph that most aquarium fish prefer.

 

[kev_kb]

You could try using Reverse Osmosis or RO water, that removes most harmful chemicals, but leaves some of the beneficial minerals that your fish need.

Sorry but that's just wrong, an RO unit will produce almost pure water which will not support life on its own. You will need to mix it back with a percentage of tap water or add minerals from an LFS such as Kent RO Right.