Adding salt to softned water

[HarryW13]

I have well water at my house that goes through a water softner, the water from my tap has a GH of 4, and a KH of 8. Now I understand that when the water goes through the softner, calcium and magnesium are exchanged for sodium. It may be softer in regards to washing clothes definiton of soft water, but the total dissolved solids are about the same, so in fact it really is still hard. I've always added aquarium salt to my water, but I'm beginning to think, because my water already has so much sodium in it already, am I overdoing it by adding more sodium chloride? ???Next question is: Untill I get an RO unit has anyone had sucess in filter out the sodium in the water somehow? ???
Thanks
Harry

[Ardan]

Hi,
If you can get the water out of a pipe before the softener it won't have the sodium in it. Maybe a basement faucet or an outdoor faucet.
hth

[HarryW13]

Ardan,
If you saw what the water looked like before it got to the softner, you would'nt ask that question. It turns a nasty looking brown, rust type of color.
Harry

[Ardan]

Hi,
The best bet is to run an RO unit after the softener then and then reconstitute the water with minerals that the discus need.
http://enchanteddiscus.com/watregen.htm

hth

[HarryW13]

Arden,
I never disputed the fact that an RO unit is best, and I will get one some day. But untill then, what can I do to make sure my water is the best for my fish?
Thanks
Harry

[Ardan]

Hi,
Are the fish doing ok for now until you can get an RO?

Otherwise bottled water or distilled water mixed in would give back some minerals. But gets expensive too.

Otherwise I would get the RO when you can, but then you still have to regenerate that with minerals.

hth

[HarryW13]

My fish appear to be doing fine, but my Discus only tank I've only had for a few weeks, so it's hard to tell how they will do long term. My discus only tank is a 55 gallon, BB, with AC500 for filtration. I keep the tank at 88 degrees for now, and have 8 juvenile discus in there. Feeding them CBW 4 times a day. I also change about 30% of the water every day. I've been adding aquarium salt with every water change, but I'm beginning to question that practice, because of the high sodium content of my water already. :-\
Harry

[Carol_Roberts]

You are correct to be concerned, Harry. Don't add any additional salt on a regular basis. Most fish stores sell salt test kits. You should test your salt levels to see how high they are. Ardan is correct that you can dilute you water with bottled water to lower salt levels.

[HarryW13]

Carol,
I did'nt know that pet stores sold salt test kits, I will go out and get one. I will also stop adding salt after my water changes. Is there any kind of media (or chemical filtration) I can add to my filter, that can get rid of sodium, I also have a Magnum 250 cantister filter I can put the media in. I've heard some people using peat, but I'm not sure if I'm a canidate for that with my situation.
Thanks again everyone for your help. ;D ;D
Harry

[Carol_Roberts]

Sorry Harry. Water changes are the only way I know of to get rid of salt - and that won't work in your case. Save up for an RO. . . .

[korbi_doc]

Gee Harry, my experience has been all bad using water after that softener, way too many sodium ions, & I feel strongly they are real bad for discus. My water TDS was > 900ppm after the softener. & I sure wouldn't add any more salt with sodium ions, (killed my fish). My well water is real nasty too, wish I could use to mix with the r/o. Perhaps you could use the pre-softener water run thru a charcoal filter? Maybe not, guess you just have to use bought water. This is a real problem, which is why I have to use reconstituted straight r/o. Sorry, can't be more help, Dottie

[espitzer]

I've also got nasty (rusty) well water and a water softening unit, but I've found a way (with the help of people from this site) to be able to use it to reconstitute my RO water. I have a faucet that I can pull water from before it gets to the softening unit.

I went to Home depot and purchased 3 water filters for about $15 each. These are basically "whole house" filters, made by GE, I believe. In each of these I put a .5-1 micron filter (these were more expensive at about $25 each) and strung them to each other using washing machine hose and fittings that the guy at Home Depot helped me find. I run the well water through this 3 stage filter and it removes the rust and nasty yellow color. It comes out pretty slowly, producing about 5 gallons in 20-30 min.

It still has a very high GH and KH, so I am doing about a 9:1 mix of RO to this water.

My readings using this are the following:

TDS= 125
pH=7.6
GH=2
KH=3

Eric

[Shari]

For what it's worth - I hate to drink the water from the water softener so when they hooked it up I had the cold water in the kitchen kept off the unit (and I do my WC's from this faucet - in effect they get only a certain amount of the extra salt as the water is part cold/part hot to acheive the 85 degrees I keep. Fish seem fine when I do add extra salt for medicinal purposes - and I do give them extra viatimins etc. as well.

[jeep]

I some softeners you can use potasium instead of salt. The problem is that you still have elevated levels of potasium. I have no idea if it's worse than the salt though, but for drinking, I think I'd rather put higher amounts of potasium in my body than sodium...