# store bought water?



## driftwood (Feb 13, 2011)

My tap water was so hard, it was off the chart. A friend that lives in the area said he filled his 55g with bottled water. I drained mine and filled it with water out of a machine at the store. PH is neutral. Now people are telling me that the PH will not be stable? My friends fish seem to be doing fine, been about 4 months for him. Any input?


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

Your water definitely has the potential of not being stable - ph wise. Typically, bottled water is very soft or zero hardness. It is the hardness, or natural buffers, in your water that keep your ph at a particular value. Without the buffers your ph WILL fluctuate and it is these fluctuations that will eventually stress and kill your fish. The hardness in your water is also why it is not a good idea to try and adjust your ph with up/down products, as the buffers in your water will drive the values right back to where they were and you're just left with the ph you started out with and a tank full of chemicals.

I have extremely hard water also, but despite the fact that the "prescribed" range of hardness for the fish I keep is much lower than what my water naturally is, the fish are fine and have adapted to it. In my planted tanks I try to keep my hardness to a kh level of around 5, because this is where most plants tend to do their best. So to accomplish this I mix 50/50 RO/tap.

Another thing about bottled/RO/distilled water is it has been stripped of all minerals. These minerals keep you/fish/plants healthy and they are needed to survive. Adding 100% water that has been stripped of everything , without at least supplementing with an additive like gh booster/stability, is just not a good idea. Your firend's tank may be doing well, but I would say that if even the slightest thing happened in his tank he could wipe out all of the fish in it fairly easily. All dependent on the sensitivity of his fish of course. How long has he been doing this?

Question I guess I have is why do you think you need a tank full of bottled water? Why do you believe your tap water was not very good?


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## UnderwaterMiracle3 (Feb 15, 2011)

Driftwood......

Another thing I must look at is that we use well water. The water is really hard around 7.8-8.1 and on top of that we throw in salt blocks and salt blocks with rust inhibiting agents to try and soften our water from the tap. I have only had my 29 gallon tank set up for 3 + months but it took me 2 months to figure out that a 50/50 combination works best for my tank. That is 50% tap-treated well water and 50% bottled water. 

Have fun and enjoy the Underwater Miracle!!


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## driftwood (Feb 13, 2011)

I think I;ll try the 50/50 and see what happens. I was going by the ratings of the Ph, and what I had read


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## NeonShark666 (Dec 13, 2010)

Commercial drinking water usually isn't very hard. You need to read the label to see what's in it. Some deep well water sold as drinking water is very hard and often labeled as Spring Water. Distilled water can have a very unstable ph, as its ph comes from dissolved CO2 only. You can stabalize the ph of distilled water by adding a little African Cichlid salt, some Ocean mix or just put a few seashells in your tank. The water you would buy from a machine at a store usually has some minerales added to give it tast and stabalize its ph (>7.0).


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## jrman83 (Jul 9, 2010)

The only way to know anything is to test the water with a gh/kh test kit.


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## phys (Feb 4, 2011)

I think also you should try the 50/50. Be sure to add it in slow so your fish can adapt without as much stress.


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