Water Sofener X R/O

[orfan]

Hi:
I' was using R/O since long time but it was damaged of last month , So I'm looking for an altenative uuit of my dammaged R/O .
So, Can I use water softener to remove calicium and magensium from my well water and then mix the output water with my well water again to get my desired degree of Gh as I was doing when I used R/O ?
Please help me.
Orfan

[Alight]

Can I use water softener to remove calicium and magensium from my well water and then mix the output water with my well water again to get my desired degree of Gh as I was doing when I used R/O ?


Short answer is "don't do it".

Longer answer is: don't do it because water softeners exchange sodium for the calcium and magnesium. This means the softened water has a considerable amount of sodium in it, which can be detrimental to your fish, if too high.

[orfan]

Dear Alight:
Thanks for your reply.
My well water gh is 16 .. is it too high to exchange calicium and magnesium with sodium?
Regards
Orfan

[Alight]

16 is fairly high. To be safe, I'd get a new RO unit as quickly as possible and do a 4:1 mix (RO to tap water). For the short term, a mix of your before and after softened water, maybe 1:1 or 1:2 tap to softened water, will probably be OK, but I'd not keep doing that if you can avoid it. You can check out the other thread on softened water posted today if you want to know more about water softeners and fish.