[scozz]

Hi all...

I have just moved house where all the water is from an underground bore and rain water collected from the roof.

Will this water be alright for the my tropical fish without having to add chemicals and water conditioner???

Thanks in advance.

 

[fish_4_all]

I would think that there is going to be a lot of stuff in the water that you won't want in your tank. Bird dropping, pesticides, outdoor plant fertilizers, roof treatment chemicals and other things.

I could be totally misunderstanding this though because I have I have not heard of the practice. I have used rain water in the past for my indoor plants when I could cleanly collect it but I really don't think it is good for the fish. If filtered someway then maybe.

 

[scozz]

Thanks for your reply...

Unfortunately i have no choice to use this water as its all is available.

I would like to know if there is something i can add to the water to condition it to make it safer.

I have used the water for the kids goldfish and believe it or not the tank has never looked better and the fish seem to love it. Is this a good indication?

It is off the scale in alkalinity so i am controlling this.

I just wanted to make sure before using it for the tropicals?

 

[fish_4_all]

Well if it works for goldies then I don't see why not. I don't mean to pry but do you drink the water? Chances are that if it is your drinking water it will be fine for tropicals. Just make sure to take a little extra time to acclimate the fish to the tank water and they should do fine. Just try to match the pH, KH and GH as close as you can to the water from the LFS and they should be fine.

 

[Lupin]

I could be totally misunderstanding this though because I have I have not heard of the practice. I have used rain water in the past for my indoor plants when I could cleanly collect it but I really don't think it is good for the fish. If filtered someway then maybe.

It can be done. Do not collect the first water from the gutter as it may have washed away rat urine, bird droppings and any other unwanted things. If you live in the rural areas, the risk of contamination from pollutants is rather low. You will have to run the rainwater under filtration with carbon to remove any more unwanted things.

Urban areas may be out of the question as there are a lot of pollutants involved and the rainwater won't be safe for the fish anymore. Note that rainwater often lacks buffering capacity so you'll need to check your KH before using a CO2 unit. KH lower than 4.5 will simply risk your tank to pH crashes thus killing or harming the fish.

Goldfish are rather tolerant of most water conditions so I wouldn't assume straight away that your other fish will be fine. There are fish that you will need to avoid if you wish to use rainwater. Rift Valley cichlids in particularly have to be avoided unless you try to increase the KH and pH to certain levels that will allow them to thrive well.

 

[musho3210]

the safest thing to do is to buy an R/O filter, it removed 95-99% of impurities and makes the water pure. Once the water is pure you will need to add back in trace elements and proper buffering and ph control but this way you will know exactly whats in your tank since you are adding the stuff.

 

[myuzicman]

I've used this kind of water before. I let the tank cycle for awhile before adding fish. My alkalinity was off the charts too, so I controlled that also. I still added conditioner to the water just to be safe. I worked well.

 

[daisycutter]

the rainwater in my area comes with all manner of nasties thats what you get from living downwind of a cement factory but bore water is very pure as it is filtered through chalk but getting at it is beyond the means of the general public :roll: the alkali reading from this is off the charts problem is the water companies use these chalk aquifers as there main supply

 

[hamdogg08]

I think that an RO unit would help out a lot in your situation. Depending on where you live, there could be a lot of farm runoff. You could also have problems with whatever your well is dug into. I've heard that limestone does a number on aquarium water.

 

[scozz]

Thanks for your replys...

I'm a bit confused about what Kh testing is. If i remember back from school i think K meant Potassium!??.

Since the Akalinity is off the chart what is the best way to do water changes?
I was told that adding a heap of chemical to increase acidity at once can stress the fish.

Thanks again.

 

[musho3210]

Thanks for your replys...

I'm a bit confused about what Kh testing is. If i remember back from school i think K meant Potassium!??.

Since the Akalinity is off the chart what is the best way to do water changes?
I was told that adding a heap of chemical to increase acidity at once can stress the fish.

Thanks again.

kh means karbonate hardness, the number of H+ molecules in the water i think :?

yes adding chemicals to the water all at once will stress the fish, hence the drip acclimating, if you are using RO water you create it before it goes in the tank. You will need to read up about using RO water and chemicals to change ph somewhere else since it is long and i really cant be bothered explaining it (plus i dont know a whole lot about it)

 

[fish_4_all]

Adjust the water you are adding to the tank to the same parameters is the tank before adding it. It will be apian to start with but it will become second nature after doing it for a while. A simple KH, GH and pH test before the water change and the adjust the tap water to the same numbers.

But definately drip acclimate the fish unless your LFS is on the same type of water and doesn't use RO water, then it may not be neccesary.

 

[Andyandsue]

I'm assuming you weren't planning on using the rainwater for your fish, which due to pollutants is just a bad idea all around. I'm not sure where you are located, but in NJ we call it "well water". Most have public water, but some areas still have well water. My old house had a well for water, and the water was horrid! make sure you test the hell out of it. I HIGHLY recommend having a water company come out and test your water fully, they usually do the testing for free. We installed a major filtration system and that helped a lot. We had extremely hard water and lots of iron to name a few. A RO filter is the best, but is also the most costly. If you are in the US, PM me and I can give you the name of a great company that we dealt with in Pennsylvania, they ship nationwide. They were awesome.

I'm wondering if you could get your fish used to bottled water and then use that until you know what's in the bore water?

 

[Lupin]

I'm wondering if you could get your fish used to bottled water and then use that until you know what's in the bore water?

That's a very expensive method unfortunately. Investing an RO unit might be the best you can approach.

 

[musho3210]

I'm wondering if you could get your fish used to bottled water and then use that until you know what's in the bore water?

That's a very expensive method unfortunately. Investing an RO unit might be the best you can approach.

matters how big the tank is to me, lets say a 2 gallon tank and you change 1/2 gallon per week, then all you need is half a gallon of spring water which costs like a dollar. But if you get an RO unit and add all the trace elements and stuff it will cost you a lot more than a dollar a week. anything above a 10 gallon should use RO water, but if its below 10 gallons bottled water should do. But since you have goldfish im guessing you have above 10 gallons so an RO unit is for you, the bottled water was just to clear things up.