Types of Water to use for your tank. An analysis.

n00b2fish

n00b2fish

AC Members
Dec 28, 2009
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San Diego, CA
I'm not a water expert so I don't know what the best type of water to use would be. I hear a lot of people using tap water and a good conditioner. With my little 3 gallon, I don't need to use very much water for PWCs. I have access to bottled water everyday and if I bring home 3, I can do one. The brand is Crystal Geyser Alpine Spring Water... I think it's nationwide. The breakdown of mineral content is as follows, hoping someone could make good sense of this for a n00b.

[FONT=verdana, arial, helvetica, sans serif]Water Analysis
*(Mg/l=milligrams per liter)
*(PP/l=pints per liter)

Calcium Ion: 12 PPM
Magnesium: 3.1 PPM
Potassium: 8.7 PPM
Sulfates: 2.6 PPM
Sodium: 130 PPM
Total Dissolved Solids: 590 PPM *(except TDS which are parts per million)
Other Principal Components: Chlorides 260 PPM
[/FONT]

I'm guessing this is per bottle (500mL, 16.9 FL.OZ). I'd use about 3 for a PWC. I haven't let the water dechlorinate by opening the bottles and letting them sit open for a while. I have just poured them in and added NovAqua and AmQuel. The fish seem to be OK with that. I do a 20% PWC about every 5 days in that 3 gallon.

Can anyone make sense of these numbers? Or, if you know, do these numbers match up to regular tap water? I guess its different for each area of the country as far as tap quality. Would cracking the bottles open hours before I pour them in help to lower the chlorine or any of the other numbers??
 
That is a very high TDS content. My tap water is fairly hard and only has about 225 ppm TDS. What is worse is that it is mostly plain salt. That means it has very little of that mineral content in useful carbonate hardness to stabilize your pH. Locally my tap water has a reputation for being hard water, but I remember the water in So Cal was harder than it is here. I am sure that many places it is much softer than here too.
 
Thanks for the replies... those numbers did open my eyes a little, so I had to post and ask. I also should mention I haven't tested my home tap water or this bottled water with anything. I think I will invest in a test kit finally to get a better idea. In my head, the bottled water idea seemed "cleaner" and "healthier". I figured if this water ends up in lakes at some point, it must be OK for fish.
 
I agree...don't bother with the bottled water. A lot of bottled water comes from the same source of water that supplies the local tap water for the region/area that it originates from. I do know for a fact that Aquafina comes from the same public reservoir that my tap water comes from here in NC.
 
The TDS is higher than what I've been using but I say still use the tap. If anything you could mix with some RO. Since you dont need that much it would probably be cheap enough to use store water (if your LFS sells it).
 
Well I guess everyone is pretty adamant that tap water would be just as good. To be honest, the bottle water isn't breaking my wallet because a PWC requires about 3 1/2 bottles. Since CG bottled water comes in 24 packs, that's at least six weekly PWC's for no more than around 6 bucks. One thing that has me concerned is the idea of the TDS in the water. I must admit, nothing looks bad in the tank and none of the fish seem to be affected by the water type. I still use NovAqua and AmQuel with each PWC. DejaBlue, which I have access to as well, boasts reverse osmosis, carbon filtration, and is purified. I was thinking this may be better than Mountain spring water.

OK, so NOW what do you think?
 
I switched to Deja Blue for PWCs and topping off evaporation. It's a purified water that uses "state of the art purification systems including RO, carbon filtration, and ozonation".

All 3 of these sound like things your water should be filtered by anyway, so...
 
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