Anyone have any experience with using water softeners and planted tanks ? There is a lot of heresay out on the web about water softners and I would like to get some feedback from someone with actual real world experience. I've kept a large variety of fish in the softened water over the past few years with no noticible negative effects so most of what I'm reading about water softeners. Most of the concern about the softened water is concern about adding sodium to the water column and this gets turned into too much salt is bad for freshwater fish. However you are actually adding very little salt (NaCL) to the water you are actually adding sodium ions Na+. I'm more concerned about the stripping of the Ca+ and Mg+ ions. Am I going to need to supplement some Calcium into the water column ? Tom if you read this it might be the beginning of a good article.

Scott Hogsten

You will want to by pass the water softener.
Removing what you need(Ca.Mg) is not something wise and then adding something you don't that stresses plants, NaCl is not good either.

Use RO if you need less in the tap for the fish.


Regards,
Tom Barr

I'm pretty much stuck using the water from the softener, the iron content of our water is so high that if I don't I will in short order have a nice orange red tank. Also while there is some NaCl coming through there's not much. Just like Algae control there is a lot of hype about water softeners that simply isn't true. Some NaCl does come through but with modern well maintained systems this amount is minimized. I've been adding some Epsom Salts for Mg. Should I start adding some CaCl ?

Scott

KCL.

Regards,
Tom Barr