water softener and chlorine filter questions

[Joseph Elliott]

I'll start with a bit of background... bought a house in a small town that has really hard water, hard enough to stain everything so I'll need a water softener. Will the water softener cause problems with ph swings in my planted tanks with CO2? Will the softened water damage plants (can't see how but you never know)? What kind of a filter do i need to remove chlorine from the water if i want to set up a auto-fill system on my 120g?

Edit to add: What would be the best lighting solution for a 120g planted tank at around 2 - 2.5 wpg?

I'll probably have more soon but lets start with those.

Joseph

Edited August 17, 2009 by Joseph Elliott

[Kayen]

We have a water softener, they turn the water into crap for plantedaquariums as far as i've experienced.

Hell everytime i do water changes now i have to steal the nieghbors hose when they aren't looking.

It replaces nutrients for sodium, which is detrimental for the plants, not sure what sodium does, all i know is you'll have to fertilize that much more.

[werner]

The water softener removes the calcium and magnesium ions and replaces them with sodium ions. Your plants need Ca and Mg, but not so much Na. High sodium intake isn't recommended for us, so it's probably not so healthy for the fish to live in either.

Options:

1. Use un-softened tap water for your aquarium. If you find it's really too hard on it's own, you can mix it with R/O or distilled water. You might want to invest in an R/O unit- it's cheaper in the long run. And you can use it for drinking water if the whole house has the softener water.

2. Use potassium chloride in the water softener instead of sodium chloride. This is much healthier than NaCl if you have to drink and cook with the softened water. And plants like potassium! The down side of this is that the bags of this salt cost 3-4 times as much as the regular.

[Joseph Elliott]

Thanks, I will add a tap before the softener when I install it. Any ideas on the chlorine filter or what lights i should use over the 120g? I am considering metal halide but haven't looked into pricing yet.

[geleen]

Thanks, I will add a tap before the softener when I install it. Any ideas on the chlorine filter or what lights i should use over the 120g? I am considering metal halide but haven't looked into pricing yet.

The softener unit will have a by-pass valve...Pottasium chloride may not be healthy for the fish do some research

j

[jvision]

Hard water is fine for almost all plants, and most fish can do OK as well. For lighting, see if you can find a good deal on a couple twin-tube T5 fixtures.

[werner]

Thanks, I will add a tap before the softener when I install it.

That's what I do. However, since it comes out ice cold, I have to let the water sit and heat up before doing water changes. I throw a heater and small powerhead in the bucket overnight and the chlorine dissipates on it's own. You could maybe work something like this into an auto water change system.

I am considering metal halide but haven't looked into pricing yet.

I also have a 120 gal (4'x2'x2') and use metal halides (2x150W) + T5HO (2x54W). I really like the halides for getting light to the deepest parts of the tank. I run the fluorescents all day and do a burst in the middle with the MH. 6 or 8 T5HOs would work too well on their own too.

Have a look at J&L Aquatics for lighting.

AS for MH bulbs, I have been using the WGNLITE 8000K bulbs for the last year and really like the color. I'm guessing that these are the generic version of Amano's 8000K bulbs (just a suspicion, no proof), but at a fraction of the price.