New to well water

[Bacchus]

I recently bought a house that's on a well after being on public water my whole life and I have a few questions regarding hardness parameters. My raw water comes in at a PH of 6.6, I have an acid neutralizer wich buffers it to 7.6 and then a softener and I placed a sterilizer at the end of the system. I tested my KH & GH today for the first time ever...total noob to hardness, KH is 4, GH 1? (1 drop to turn green using an API kit)
I think I understand KH fairly well... a higher number helps prevent PH swings, & from what I've read 4 is pretty good? I'm clueless to GH however...there seems to be quite a few different units of measure for it & not much info on how it affects other water parameters or what a good number is. I appreciate any help you can offer!

 

[deeda]

Can you test the kH & gH after the acid neutralizer and BEFORE the softener?

Is your water treatment system a whole house single unit or individual separate units?

Is there a particular reason you have a Sterilizer on the system?

 

[duanes]

4 grains of hardness would mean soft. When running thru a softener, you are exchanging the calcium ion for a sodium ion, not needed for your fresh water fish.
Sounds like you have perfect water for many Amazon river and Asian fish, and the capacity to do enough free water changes not to worry about pH drop if you don't overstock. Many people would kill for your water straight from the tap.

 

[Bacchus]

Can you test the kH & gH after the acid neutralizer and BEFORE the softener?

Is your water treatment system a whole house single unit or individual separate units?

Is there a particular reason you have a Sterilizer on the system?

Yup, all the units have bypasses, I think flipping the bypass on the softener is the way I'll go when I'm dealing with the tank. I'll get a reading tomorrow.

It's a whole house system, I've got a pic somewhere.

The sterilizer makes me feel alot better about using water that's coming out of the ground


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[Bacchus]

4 grains of hardness would mean soft. When running thru a softener, you are exchanging the calcium ion for a sodium ion, not needed for your fresh water fish.
Sounds like you have perfect water for many Amazon river and Asian fish, and the capacity to do enough free water changes not to worry about pH drop if you don't overstock. Many people would kill for your water straight from the tap.

So your saying the softener is not needed right? That's what I'm leaning towards. I bet my GH before the softener is a good bit higher. When I had the house inspected the well people said it really wasn't needed, but I may as well use it if I have it. It does work out well for Amazonian fish! I'm setting up a tank this week, going to get a leopoldi. The fact that the water is free is pretty cool : )


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