Worth it to go RO in my situation?

I have well water that is very hard so it is treated through a salt-based water softener. I'm wondering if it wouldn't be worth it to go 100% RO water for my 13gal, currently my only tank. I don't really mind keeping harder water species but the problem is my tap has added salt and removed calcium and magnesium from the softener. Nowhere in the house has unsoftened water (including the outside hose).

My tap parameters today were:

17 drops KH
pH 8.2-8.4--in the middle of those colors
8.0 ammonia (I believe this is due to chlorine bleach used to clean the well water)
0 nitrite
0 nitrate
18-19 GH drops

50:50 mix of tap & water I bought
pH 8.0-8.2 in between colors
KH started to turn at 11 greeny teal
Would’ve turned all the way at 12 but I dropped it haha
GH 9-10 drops

Would it be worth it for one tank? I would like to get a larger tank eventually but for now I only have one. I could buy RO or distilled by the gallon, add minerals, and eventually set up RO in my house. Would this be worth it? I am unsure because I don't mind my water being hard but the salt and ca&ma problems give me a pause. I can bypass the softener, but then there is the issue of residual salt still getting in. Thoughts?

 

Hey,

if you intend to have planted tanks, it's definitely worth it.

Plants need sodium in traces, however, higher concentrations are toxic to plants. And water softeners are usually well over those concentrations.

 

Thank you! I do intend to have planted tanks. The one I have now is planted, and I wonder if it is the softener causing the lack of growth. The plants are alive but not doing well haha.

Do you think it would be better to go 100% RO or mix it with tap? Just wondering because I don't have any way to get RO other than to buy it for now, which shouldn't be too expensive since the tank isn't very big. I have no idea how to install one so it might be a while.

 

Hey,

The one I have now is planted, and I wonder if it is the softener causing the lack of growth. The plants are alive but not doing well haha.

Very possible!

Do you think it would be better to go 100% RO or mix it with tap? Just wondering because I don't have any way to get RO other than to buy it for now, which shouldn't be too expensive since the tank isn't very big. I have no idea how to install one so it might be a while.

Do you know by any chance how much GH is removed? Rule of thumb is every °dH of GH removed adds 8.2ppm of sodium per liter.

If it's too much I would go 100% RO with a good mineral salt in this case. (something that adds GH and KH)
Not sure about RODI systems in the US, here they are basically $60 and you just screw them to the tap or to the outlet your washing machine is installed to (with a Y adapter so both still works of course).
Usually a lot cheaper on the long run.

 

I don't, but I will try and find that out. I have seen a couple of cheap ones here, usually $60-70. Thing is I don't know much about plumbing, I guess I'll have to learn! Thank you!

 

It would be ideal if you could draw tap/faucet water from before the softener and add RO to make a mixture of your liking. I mix my pre-softener tap water w RO at a given ratio and all is fine. You’d have to experiment to find the ratio. Also, it would be SO much cheaper to install (even professionally) an RO system with a booster pump and 10-15g pressure/reserve tank since you said you‘re going to get a bigger tank down the road. The booster pump enables one to get a whole lot more RO water per day and the larger tank will hold more RO so that you’d get perhaps 9-14 gallons per two hour process/RO making time.

 

Yes you can go for RO...
But you have to check your minerals parameters.
So that you sufficently add them

 

The ammonia is concerning, it doesn't come from chlorine, unless chloramine is being used and not just chlorine to treat the well.

Shouldn't really be ammonia there. unless theres a farm nearby and it's ammonia/nitrate/urea seepage.

 

I have well water that is very hard so it is treated through a salt-based water softener. I'm wondering if it wouldn't be worth it to go 100% RO water for my 13gal, currently my only tank. I don't really mind keeping harder water species but the problem is my tap has added salt and removed calcium and magnesium from the softener. Nowhere in the house has unsoftened water (including the outside hose).

My tap parameters today were:

17 drops KH
pH 8.2-8.4--in the middle of those colors
8.0 ammonia (I believe this is due to chlorine bleach used to clean the well water)
0 nitrite
0 nitrate
18-19 GH drops

50:50 mix of tap & water I bought
pH 8.0-8.2 in between colors
KH started to turn at 11 greeny teal
Would’ve turned all the way at 12 but I dropped it haha
GH 9-10 drops

Would it be worth it for one tank? I would like to get a larger tank eventually but for now I only have one. I could buy RO or distilled by the gallon, add minerals, and eventually set up RO in my house. Would this be worth it? I am unsure because I don't mind my water being hard but the salt and ca&ma problems give me a pause. I can bypass the softener, but then there is the issue of residual salt still getting in. Thoughts?

Doesnt seem like tap is softened

 

It would be ideal if you could draw tap/faucet water from before the softener and add RO to make a mixture of your liking. I mix my pre-softener tap water w RO at a given ratio and all is fine. You’d have to experiment to find the ratio. Also, it would be SO much cheaper to install (even professionally) an RO system with a booster pump and 10-15g pressure/reserve tank since you said you‘re going to get a bigger tank down the road. The booster pump enables one to get a whole lot more RO water per day and the larger tank will hold more RO so that you’d get perhaps 9-14 gallons per two hour process/RO making time.

I'll keep that in mind, thank you! a booster pump is definitely something I'll consider.

Yes you can go for RO...
But you have to check your minerals parameters.
So that you sufficently add them

That's step two of the process, haha.

The ammonia is concerning, it doesn't come from chlorine, unless chloramine is being used and not just chlorine to treat the well.

Shouldn't really be ammonia there. unless theres a farm nearby and it's ammonia/nitrate/urea seepage.

I agree. I am going to retest the tap tomorrow as well as a bottle of distilled I have to check if I made an error or if my test kit is off somehow. My household is apparently using regular old clorox bleach in treating the water--not sure if it would come from that somehow? I'll admit to not really knowing the exact way the water treatment system in the house works. I know that bleach isn't going into the well itself though it sounds like it might need shocking. I'm looking into getting the well tested. The nitrates were 0 (I'll test that again too) and there's no noticeable odd taste or smell so hopefully it's okay

Doesnt seem like tap is softened

What makes you say that? The softener doesn't actually make the water conditions more acidic, it just makes it feel "softer".

 

The gh should be low or near 0 if it is softened

Gh is the calcium and magnesium ions that softeners replace with sodium

 

Hey,

depends on, there are also softeners that reduce by a certain amount. Say GH 30 to GH 20.

Here in Germany that has to do with the law ... sodium is only allowed up to 200ppm in the water, so water softeners are only allowed to put in x amount of sodium.

 

Hm, not sure why that's happening with the GH. I'll retest it and see. There could be regulations on how much sodium can be added, no idea. It probably varies based on what state you're in.

Retested my tap's ammonia and got .25. I'll check that again too since I got 2 very different results.

Thank you to everyone who has responded so far!

 

I do not have a well, but my community has extremely hard water around 20 dGH. and a TDS of around 500 ppm.. Like you, my water goes through a salt-based water softener. I added an RO system to provide water for my aquariums. The system originally came with a DI stage as well, but I do not use the deionization resin bed. The water coming through the RO membrane has a TDS of 10-20 ppm.

Using RO water to replace water lost to evaporation is ideal as the water evaporation leaves minerals behind, so adding RO water does not increase the mineral level in the tank. However, fish and plants cannot live in water without minerals. When you do water changes, you have to add minerals to the RO water to replace the minerals you remove from the aquarium during the water change. In my case, I use a product called Seachem Equilibrium. It contains sodium and magnesium and other minerals, but it does not contain any carbonate or phosphate ions to buffer the pH. Thus, you will need to add buffers to stabilize the pH and alkalinity. There are other products similar to Equilibrium, including RO Right. There is also a product called Salty Shrimp gh/kh+ which claims to have minerals to control both hardness and alkalinty, but I have not used it. I prefer using separate products.

Since you have only a single 13 gallon tank, you might find it feasible to purchase 5 gallon jugs of RO water, or even spring water. In my case, I have larger aquariums, so having my own RO system is cost effective. If you can get spring water from a natural spring, you should not need to add minerals, but always check the quality of the water.

 

It would be ideal if you could draw tap/faucet water from before the softener and add RO to make a mixture of your liking. I mix my pre-softener tap water w RO at a given ratio and all is fine. You’d have to experiment to find the ratio. Also, it would be SO much cheaper to install (even professionally) an RO system with a booster pump and 10-15g pressure/reserve tank since you said you‘re going to get a bigger tank down the road. The booster pump enables one to get a whole lot more RO water per day and the larger tank will hold more RO so that you’d get perhaps 9-14 gallons per two hour process/RO making time.

I noticed that you are doing what I am doing bgarthe! And it looks like maybe you have a betta? I am very new to the aquarium world so really looking for people that have the same water situation as I do. I have very hard tap water (22+ GH) and a water softener. Don't want to use the softened water for various reasons, even though betta's like "soft" water. So I have been mixing RO with tap from the softener bypass. Have you had good success with this method? I have a few quesyions for you if so!

 

Been doing it for years w no issues w my five tanks…75, 60, 20long, 10, and 5. Once the ratio is established with good testing, it’s all automatic for me. Every few months I’ll do a spot test just to be sure.