aged tap water brown floaties

[Vicfortier]

Hi, i am a newcomer to the discus hobby. I have had my tap water aging in a 35 gallon black plastic barrel bought at wal-mart. I opened the lid today after it had been sitting for 3-4 days and saw that i had a residue floating on the surface of the water. some of it had formed into brown chunks. i took a net and fished some of it out and it turned the net brown. Any idea what this is? i have well water, and no chemicals have been added to the barrel.

[Vicfortier]

Also, all i have in the barrel is a power head for circulation and a heater. the water is unfiltered straight from the tap.

[Keith Perkins]

My first guess would be that it's something leaching out of the plastic the trash can is made of. I personally use 44 gallon rubbermaid trash cans and have never had anything like what you're reporting, but perhaps the Wal-mart container is a lot cheaper and made of inferior materials.

[Vicfortier]

Well I have seen this brow stuff before, after my power went out for several hours all the water coming out of my taps was brow until I ran it for awhile. Is it possible its something other than the barrel? How would I find out?

[Keith Perkins]

Many local water authorities will test water for little to nothing, I'd try them first. Very odd if it comes out of your tap like that.

[Vicfortier]

Odd, yes. Lol. I'm going to get a water filter for after my pump tank. Hoping it will reduce the problem. Think I'm also going to drain my hot water heater and see how much crud is built up inside of it.

[Vicfortier]

Filter on the pump didn't work. Bought a new barrel to age in, didn't work. Guess I need to take my water to a specialist and see if my water is slowly killing me, or more importantly, slowly killing my fish. :-/

[Fishwhispererpam]

Love the fish priority! (and can relate!)

[Northwoods Discus]

With well water you may be getting some iron. Do you have high iron. There are two kinds of iron dissolved and well undissolved I guess. Fe++ and Fe+++ . One type of iron filter will not remove both types of iron. You can also have iron bacteria. Water softeners will remove some iron. I have terrible hard high iron well water. I have an iron filter, followed by 2 whole house filters and then the water softener.
The water used to destroy all of our appliances and did not taste great. Now we can drink the water and not buy bottled. I do use it for my fish with some straight well water added back in for minerals.

[Vicfortier]

I dont know if i have high iron, but i suppose that could explain the rusting looking stains in all my sinks and toilets. and the orange mud looking stuff that builds up on my faucet and washing machine screens. My hardness however isnt that high. Around 4 degrees GH and KH.