Help Wanted: My Well Water Is Rusty And Full of Sediment

IceBerg

Hi,

Here is the back story. Last July I bought a 55 gal tank with a stand and all the accessories. It's decorated with about an inch of aquarium gravel and a large driftwood structure with a cave. I also have a small rock formation with a tree growing out of it. I currently have 5 Tiger Barbs and 2 Pictus Catfish. I'm looking to add one more Tiger Barb and a few more compatible fish.

The problem I have is with my fresh water source. My well water isn’t really suitable for keeping tropical fish. It occasionally comes out rusty and stains our laundry. It also can come out very cloudy. We are forced to use bottled water for all our cooking and drinking needs. I did try a Britta faucet filter but the water was still full of sediment and not crystal clear. Then I decided that I could just spend the $3.50 to fill up two 5 gallon jugs at the supermarket and change my water that way. Since it's a bit of a pain to change my water, I only vacuum out 10 gallons of water every two weeks. It seems to be working fine so far but I would really like an effective way to filter my well water.

Has anyone ran into this situation? What type of filtration system do I need to filter my well water? Could a Reverse Osmosis filtration system work for me? Also I'm not looking to filter the water for the whole house, just for my aquarium. Any suggestions on my well water problem or any advice on fish keeping would be great.

Thanks,

Kevin

Angel079

Hi Kevin, welcome to the forum!
I've used high iron well water before same issue as you. The cloudiness (if its whitish in color) is due to the well water being rich on calcium as well.
What I did and worked well for yrs; filled up big buckets with well water & dechlorinator let that sit ~2days so all the iron particles would settle on the bottom and then carefully poured the water into buckets leaving the remaining 1-2" with the residue in the main bigger bucket.
This still had enough iron etc in the water to make my plants thrive real well; however being settled it didn't have enough to coat my tank with residue any longer

Hope this helps ya.

lennyboy222

In my opinion, a RO water will come in handy. RO water comes out virtually mineral free with 0 ppm. You can buy one off eBay for $50. That will get rid of the rust particle. Just search on eBay for a RO filter. I got mine for $60 with DI filtration.

Angel079

Yea but mineral free also means ZERO of nothing in that water to feed your plants

IceBerg

Thanks for the tip Angel! I did notice that the water buckets for the dogs have crystal clear water in them with all the rust particles settled at the bottom. I just didn’t think of using it on a larger scale. I should be able to pick up a few large rain collecting barrels. They should work great!

As for live pants. What plant or plants would you recommend for a beginner? The girls at the pet store recommend Java Fern and Java Moss? Are those going to be able to thrive under standard florescent lighting?

Kelso

I kind of run into the same problem. I don't have the rust problem, but after heavy raining I get lots of...well dirt in the water. I actually changed my tank with the slightly dirty water. Didn't do anything wrong. But for you and your rust, I recommend doing what Angel said. It's more than likely how I would deal with the rust.

Angel079

I had used the normal rubbermaid bins lol but a whole rain barrel will do the trick too

Plants: Java Ferns, Pennywort, Vallisnaria, Hygrophilia, Rotals...These are all super easy & quick growers

iamntbatman

Java Fern and Java Moss are like the cockroaches of the aquatic plant world. They'll grow under just about any light conditions, in just about any water parameters and most herbivorous fish won't eat them. Pretty much the easiest plants around, if you ask me.