I am in the final stages of buying my new house and was wondering how having a water softener will effect my fish. I have never had one before so am worried about any potential issues that may arise when moving the tank and fish. Thanks for the help!
I think it depends on the fish you will be keeping. I just researched the same issue with our new water softener in our new house. I will be keeping Oscars, Cats and other dithers. I have read that my fish will be fine.
If you are moving fish from hard to soft though you will want to transition them to the soft water over time. Find a source of hard water in your new house then slowly acclimate them to the soft water. Dr. Joe may give you a time frame but I'd probably up your softwater percentage in the tank somewhere around 10 - 20% a week taking 5-10 weeks to go full soft.
2nd what Bud8Fan said. Be sure to acclimate them slowly to the soft water if they are in a hard water supply. I'm assuming that your water is also alot more acidic being soft or at least closer to 7.0 pH then it was being hard with a higher pH so you might want to check the pH of your tap water vs the pH in the tank your fish are in now to adjust it accordingly ~Trent
Edit: would be great for most south american species (peacock bass, discus, etc) and not very good for most african cichlids
i had a water softener befor and i had an oscar in a 75gal, no issues except the filters had to be changed more often in the softener because of my large water cahnges all the time..also i noticed that the pressure of the water from the tap was determined on how clean the filters were in the softener were(if you use a python)
I will be going from hard to soft so I will acclimate them slowly. I will probably just age water from one of the outside faucets since the soft water loop only runs through the interior faucets. I will be keeping my Black Aro, Niger Hybrid, peacock bass, clown knife...and Discus in the future in this tank so they should like the water once it is fully soft.
