I hate my water

[its_an_obsession]

has anyone else moved to a different location where the water just sucked. ive had pikes for a long time and i moved last year and now its pretty much like every fish i have from south america is going down. especially my pikes.

it makes me so frustrated. i bought a pair of cr. gaucho a month 2 months ago. one mysteriously died while i was away for 2 days. and now a few weeks later the other is acting very funny.

first a few days ago i noticed him trying to hide more. he was still eating alot so i didnt think much of it. pikes tend to like caves and claim them as their territory. now today i go to feed and hes nowhere to be found. i get scared and look all over the tank and find him hiding in a corner. front lip all white likes hes been rubbing up against the glass. he keeps putting his nose in the gravel and doing barrel rolls. i did an instant water change and well see how it goes. i just hope he can make it a few more days til i move to a new location that hopefully has more friendly water.

 

[sostoudt]

has anyone else moved to a different location where the water just sucked. ive had pikes for a long time and i moved last year and now its pretty much like every fish i have from south america is going down. especially my pikes.

it makes me so frustrated. i bought a pair of cr. gaucho a month 2 months ago. one mysteriously died while i was away for 2 days. and now a few weeks later the other is acting very funny.

first a few days ago i noticed him trying to hide more. he was still eating alot so i didnt think much of it. pikes tend to like caves and claim them as their territory. now today i go to feed and hes nowhere to be found. i get scared and look all over the tank and find him hiding in a corner. front lip all white likes hes been rubbing up against the glass. he keeps putting his nose in the gravel and doing barrel rolls. i did an instant water change and well see how it goes. i just hope he can make it a few more days til i move to a new location that hopefully has more friendly water.

use a water filter even a brita one would probably work

 

[nubz]

the water were i used to live was gnarly!

 

[rnocera]

I pay $40 a month to rent a water treatment system (softener, filters, chlorinator, etc. . .) specifically so I can keep fish. I work for the company that we get the water treatment stuff from so I only pay 1/3 or 1/4 of retail price. So, for anyone else to keep fish in my house, it'd cost them $120+ a month.

Our water's nasty. Before treatment the hardness is completely off the charts, pH is over 8, and we have 3-4ppm ammonia from all of the "ferrous bacteria" in the well & aquifer. It's hard to be much nastier than that!

 

[its_an_obsession]

i shoudl look into stuff like that. unfortunately my budget doesnt support it yet. i tried a bunch of buffers but i thought they made it worse even tho they lowered the ph. i seemeed to see more problems using them.

hopefully my new water is better. at least god made beer. hopefully the water change helped alot. im praying he turns around in the morning.

 

[Mr. Grumpy Gills]

best bet is to filter it.
check ebay. my friend got a 50 gpd for $44
then a clean rubbermaid garbage can to collect it all.
since ive gone with ro, ive have not wanted to go back to tap.

 

[rnocera]

Yeah, you can get cheap RO units (which are awesome!), and you can get water softeners pretty cheap, too. I don't know a ton about softeners but I do know you can put a ton of different chemicals in them. Mine softens the water with god knows what kind of resin then it runs through a second whole softener full of zeolite to work as a sediment filter and to remove the ammonia.

My next one is an RO unit. I'm keeping my eyes open for cheap ones that do enough water for me.

 

[its_an_obsession]

what do you add to the RO water before adding to the tank? ideally i want to add stuff that would make for a good SA tank. so i have happy pike.

 

[rnocera]

We use RO water in the store I work in and all we add there are salt & dechlorinator. We used to add all kinds of bacteria-boosting products, but they're garbage, and I finally talked them out of adding things like that. Personally, I wouldn't even add salt. For SA cichlids I'd just add RO water and throw some driftwood in the tanks. I think my SA tanks look awesome with driftwood & tannins in them

If you do RO, you may want to put a whole-house prefilter on before the RO unit to keep the RO unit clean as long as possible. I'm not actually sure if that's necessary or not, but it couldn't hurt, and those are cheap.

 

[Peanut_Power]

You will want to add some tap water with the RO water. Pure RO water is not exactly healthy for fish because its so pure there are no essential minerals in it, thus messing with the fishes natural osmosis and other jank. 1 to 6 ratio would be plenty enough...ie....5gals tap to 30gals RO.

The other problem with pure RO is the risk of unstability and crashes. It can be a nightmare for sure. haha

Unless you have a constant drip/waterchange system going, then pure RO will be fine.

That sucks though mate, I hope all is well. Luckily the water isn't too crappy here, but I've been places where its hella annoying. Very frustrating for sure. I've never been in the dream places though where SA cichlids will breed right from your tap water...jealous of those places.

How is the pike doing? How far are you moving? Better be more than 30miles, otherwise you might end up with the same water. You should test the water there, and then test the water at the new place to see the change.

You should be careful about the change as well, as its possible it might be dramatic enough to stress or even kill your fish.