Water Hardness from softener

[jeff12]

I have a water softener hooked up to the whole house except the outside hose. I brought my water to petco to get the water tested and found out the water from the outside hose has a hardness of 150ppm and higher but the water from the faucet has 0ppm. So can I use the water from the faucet for discus? For breeding too? The water softener uses sodium to soften the water.

[DJW]

Is your softener the kind where you add salt? If it is, then the following comments would apply:

It looks like the pet store measured General Hardness (GH) which doesn't recognize or include sodium. The 150ppm in your source water is mostly calcium and magnesium and these ions are being replaced with sodium ions in the softener. The "softened" water is better for household use but not better for the fish. If it isn't a huge inconvenience I would use the unsoftened water upstream from the softener, but many people use salt-softened water without problems and your water isn't that hard to begin with. The salt-softened water is hard on plants though.

What kind of softener is it?

Also it would be good to know the TDS of your water.

[Skip]

I have same system type.. My did guppies didn't do well in that water .. So I use the bypass nozzle.. Much happier..
I don't consider that safe soft water for guppies much less Discus

[jeff12]

Yes it uses salt. It's the Intellisoft.

What is the different between GH and TDS?

So could I use the backyard water for discus without any treatments?

[DJW]

It would be better to use the unsoftened water.

GH or general hardness measures mainly calcium and magnesium ions, and TDS or Total Dissolved Solids is a measure of all inorganic solids dissolved in the water, and would include salinity if any.

The next thing you need to do is find out if your water's PH changes or swings over time after it comes out of the tap. Here is a sticky that describes this. You should read the whole thing but for now scroll down about half way and read the section on Water Quality and PH Stability:

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showthread.php?86009-Beginner-s-Guide-to-Getting-Started-with-Discus

[TexMoHoosier]

It looks like the pet store measured General Hardness (GH) which doesn't recognize or include sodium. The 150ppm in your source water is mostly calcium and magnesium and these ions are being replaced with sodium ions in the softener. The "softened" water is better for household use but not better for the fish. If it isn't a huge inconvenience I would use the unsoftened water upstream from the softener, but many people use salt-softened water without problems and your water isn't that hard to begin with. The salt-softened water is hard on plants though.

Also it would be good to know the TDS of your water.

+1

It would also be good to know your KH. IMO, as far as aquariums go, the only utility of a water softener that uses NaCl is that it might prolong the life of an RO membrane since it can be flushed a little more efficiently. But if you're using RO water, then you have to re-constitute it to the desired KH & GH. I agree that it's probably best to just use water that hasn't gone through the softener.