Will Boiling Water Soften My Water?

[Aztec]

Will Boiling Water soften my water?

 

[england]

I don't think it would do anything, what fish are you planning to keep?

my water is very hard and has a ph of 8.0 - 8.5

 

[Aztec]

I have I have 4 mollies and 1 platy and my ph is around 7.2 to 7.4. I have peat moss in my filters and i think it helps with stabilizing the ph but i thought i would soften my water a bit. I know using distilled water would help but I want to avoid buying anything if i don't have to and i don't want to use chemicals

 

[chrisbassist]

boiling water would actually have the opposite effect, all that steam coming off is pure water, and that means all the impurities are still in the remaining water, but with less of the water. not to mention if there is limescale in the kettle.

it may not be enough difference to worry about, but you can distill water yourself, thats collecting that steam... until you have enough water... but if you're talking water changes then thatmight take a while...

 

[Curiosity101]

Why on earth are you wanting to soften your water?
7.2-7.4 isn't bad. And mollys imparticular like hard water.

 

[Aztec]

You know, once I started to think about it, I think you're right. It would just end up concentrating the minerals and metals in the water. Thanks. The real reason i wanted to soften my water was for my plants.

[Thanks for the info. Didn't know that about Mollies. Is that your tank in the picture? That's a nice one. Do you have a CO2 reactor? I'm thinking of getting one for my tank. I have a 14 gal.

 

[Curiosity101]

Yes it's my tank and no I don't run CO2 on it. Too much effort.

 

[Mikaila31]

Boiling water will harden your water. pH also has very little to do with water hardness. You should do a gH test before you call you water hard. You said you need to stabilize your pH? That kinda suggests your water might be soft if pH moves around easy.

 

[Aztec]

Actually my ph is quite stable and I think it's because of my peat moss. I wanted to soften the water a bit for my plants.

 

[OldMan47]

I love to keep and breed mollies and find that my hard water with a pH of around 7.8 is just to their liking. When I have any issues with my mollies, I do a water change and add the 7.8 pH water back in. They seem to thrive on my hard, high pH water.

 

[nmonks]

Not quite true. Boiling water does soften it. When water is boiled some of the so-called temporary hardness comes out of solution (precipitates) and forms the limescale you find inside kettles. That's why kettles fur up. If the boiling water is poured into another container it will not be able to re-dissolve that temporary hardness, so it will, in effect, be softened.

However, boiling has no effect on what is called permanent hardness, equivalent to general hardness in aquarium terms. So all boiling would achieve is to lower the carbonate hardness (which buffers pH) while leaving general hardness alone. This is why we don't soften water this way.

Cheers, Neale

boiling water would actually have the opposite effect, all that steam coming off is pure water, and that means all the impurities are still in the remaining water, but with less of the water. not to mention if there is limescale in the kettle.