Adding water softener
- Thread starter skynoch
- Start date
didn't actually go through with it yet . read some more on it and found that people were getting sick due to high level of sodium in drinking water so was nervous about effect on rays. i'm hoping someone on here has been using one to know if there are any ill effects. Rudy mentioned he disconnected his to me but can't remember why? hopefully he can chime in
a word about water softeners. most systems use ion exchange to remove the bivalent cations that cause hardness (notably Mg and Ca). they do this by swapping the Mg and Ca ions for sodium Na (a monovalent cation). As they swap an ion with two bonding sites (bivalent) for one with only one bonding site(monovalent), you need twice the number of monovalent cations for each bivalent cation removed. Its a 2 for 1 swap.
so, what does this catually mean? well, yes, your measurable hardness (GH) will decrease (GH test kits only measure bivalent cations), but you are replacing them with double the number of sodium ions in solution. this INCREASES the total desolved solids (TDS) and electrical conductivity. for most fish, hardness is simply a rough measure of TDS. 'soft' water fish come from regions of very low TDS, and hardwater fish the opposite. by using an ion exchange water softener, you are actually increasing the TDS and therefore, as far as the fish is concerned, increasing the hardness of the water (its all the same to the fish as far as osmotic potentials are concerned)
so, in a word, water softeners actually worsen conditions for soft water fish, not improve them.
the only way to genuinely soften water (not just fool our test kits) is either to use peat extracts or a reverse osmosis system.
so, what does this catually mean? well, yes, your measurable hardness (GH) will decrease (GH test kits only measure bivalent cations), but you are replacing them with double the number of sodium ions in solution. this INCREASES the total desolved solids (TDS) and electrical conductivity. for most fish, hardness is simply a rough measure of TDS. 'soft' water fish come from regions of very low TDS, and hardwater fish the opposite. by using an ion exchange water softener, you are actually increasing the TDS and therefore, as far as the fish is concerned, increasing the hardness of the water (its all the same to the fish as far as osmotic potentials are concerned)
so, in a word, water softeners actually worsen conditions for soft water fish, not improve them.
the only way to genuinely soften water (not just fool our test kits) is either to use peat extracts or a reverse osmosis system.
But does Peat actually soften the water, or just provide a lot of the 'extracts' that the fish like? I've had a bag of pressed peat meant for ponds (Laguna brand, says for ponds to 2000 gallons) in a 200 gallon for over 2 weeks and there's no noticeable difference in the GH when I test.
it does, but only in very small ammounts. you'd probably have to trickle water through a barrel full to get an appreciable effect on GH.
From The Krib:
From The Krib:
an ion exchange softener should make no difference to the buffereing capacity of the water, as they only exchange cations, not anions (of which carbonate which provides buffering, is). you should also see little change in pH.
however, its a mute point really, as for the reasons I have already mentioned, i wouldnt use one for any of my fish.
if you want to soften your water, use an RO unit. If you want to use softer water and yet maintain some buffering, use RO, and mix in back some minerals, either as powdered chemicals (epsom salts for GH, bicarbonate of soda for KH and buffering) or mix regular or filtered tap water.
Personally I live in a very hard water area (they make building blocks out of the water round here its so hard), so I use an RO unit, and mix in water filtered through a CBR2 filter to remineralise a little and maintain stability. 4 parts RO to 1 part CBR2 gives me a TDS or around 130ppm.
however, its a mute point really, as for the reasons I have already mentioned, i wouldnt use one for any of my fish.
if you want to soften your water, use an RO unit. If you want to use softer water and yet maintain some buffering, use RO, and mix in back some minerals, either as powdered chemicals (epsom salts for GH, bicarbonate of soda for KH and buffering) or mix regular or filtered tap water.
Personally I live in a very hard water area (they make building blocks out of the water round here its so hard), so I use an RO unit, and mix in water filtered through a CBR2 filter to remineralise a little and maintain stability. 4 parts RO to 1 part CBR2 gives me a TDS or around 130ppm.
