ewiz06

I have a 46 gal. freshwater tank. I have been making weekly to bi-weekly changes of 25-35% for the past 8 months. Everything was going fine, especially after my algae bloom cleared up 6 months ago. Anyway, we added a water purification system to our house in August. The system does cycle the water through some salt before going through the filtration process. The water does not taste or feel salty at all. However, I've noticed that sometimes after I do a water change one of my fish will die in a few days (I have 1 small angel, 2 large danios, 2 German rams, 2 cherry barb tetras, 1 small pleco and 1 cory cat.

I'm not sure if the demise of some of my fish is caused by my new water system or not. I'm just looking for some answers here. I have a Penguin filter that is for aquariums up to 60 gal. I do have space available to add another small filter. Would this help?

Any suggestions or ideas would be appreciated.

Tom

I know I have a water purifier and different people said not to use the water purifier because you lose some helpful things for the fish and plants, so I just use plain tap water and add the necessary chemicals to clean it up enoug for the fish to survive.
Tom

ewiz06

Thanks Tom. I guess the issue isn't the possible salt being added from the purifier, as I don't think much is there. Unfortunately the system is hooked up to all of my water outlets. Any other ideas on what I could do here? Do I need to add any type of chemicals?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!!

BristolBulldog

Get some proper advice on this, but if you think the water you are adding is simply lacking in parts, and not adding anything bad, get some RO additive.

I think when you RO water (reverse osmosis) you get almost 100% pure water. so when you add to the tank, you need to put an additive in to give the fish all the other stuff they need.

Not sure what types or where you get it, but google the additive, and at a guess that might solve the issue. posting on a marine forum, or asking someone who know about marine setups will help more (they use RO alot i think).

hope this helps rather thanh confuses!

ewiz06

Thanks a lot BB. I will definitely look into this.

cherryrose

The only thing I can think of is to use bottled drinking water, with nothing added. It might get kind of spendy with that big of a tank though.

CherryRose

Golden Fish

The only thing i can think of is if you had really crappy hard water and now it is soft it is shocking the fish.
Water softeners typically lower the General Hardess (GH) which fish are sensitive too.

What is your water softener hooked up for? To remove metals like Iron and to get rid of calcium are the most common. There are alot of chemicals, resins, etc. that could be hooked besides the salt.
Have you tested the water since adding the softener? On the other extreme your softener could be hooked up wrong. Where i live this happens quite often. This is unlikely because most of the time your water will come out blue or taste wierd/smell wierd.

Golden Fish

I forgot.
Ro Reverse Osmosis units Remove almost EVERYTHING from the water. The ones that work cost alot $$. Make sure you know what your buying before going there. If you need a RO system to remove stuff from your water to help the fish than your softener is hooked up wrong and adding something that it should not. A typical softener (one that gets rid of calcium, magnesium, iron, sulfur, etc.) when hooked up correctly should not add anything to the water.
Also Depending on what else your softener is hooked up for it is also possible for it to be lower your Karbonate Hardness (most do NOT however). If this happens your pH will go all over the place, not cool for the fishes. Try and answer these questions if you can for me.
What was in your water, The reason you got the sofener?
How did your water test before the softener?
How about after?
What was your Ph, GH and KH before and after?

Izabela

This may be a long shot, but do you possibly have an outlet outside you could use? Or a friendly neighbor who might let you use their water bi-weekly. I mean, we're only talking about 10-15G here....just a thought.

Izabelah

chickadee

The water softeners that use salt are really bad for freshwater fish. Even if you only use the cold water tap which is the way you should have it plugged in to prevent having drinking water overly treated with salt, the salt is in the pipes and plumbing fixtures and will sift through some. I do not know what to tell you but see if you can get someone to allow you to use some of their water or else you may have to buy water (expensive I know) but the salt is probably causing the problem. Salt is a dehydrator in the aquarium and you are probably upsetting the fish's osmotic balance.

Rose

Golden Fish

Hey Chickadee I agree with you about water softeners with salt are bad for fish. Now I am going to get into trouble.

The reason they are bad for fish is because they are hooked up wrong. If they are hooked up correctly then there should not be enough salt to matter. The problem is ALOT of people do not use resin/or enough resin with the salt Or they don't hook them up properly. The water is supposed to go through the resin then the salt and then the resin. The resin removes the calcium and it gets replaced with salt, then back into the resin to flush the calcium out of the resin and replace it with salt. The Resin is "programed" to absorb the salt. This leaves your water free of everything. About once a week (depends on how much water you use) the Resin has to go through a cycle to pump out all the salt it has filled up with, this is called a regen. (as in regeneration) cycle. It gets rid of all the salt it has absorbed and can start over. Depending on the resin and how much water gets pumped through it depends on how long it last. Usually 4-5 years. This is a pretty basic system that removes only Calcium and under 5ppm of iron. Also one of the most common softeners.
Like our fish products there are hundreds of different chemicals and resins that do diff things. Sometimes resins or media that removes things that are not even in your water can cause a lot of problems, like growing bacteria, smells, etc. This is bad because you might get sold on a $3000.00 water softener which has a bunch of different media in it when you don't need all of it. Like a LFS selling you 7.0 ph adjuster when your ph is 8 and most fish will get used to it with out lowering it.
Sorry to steal the thread, just throwing what i know about this out there.