Ion-exchange Softener for good skin?

[kiky]

Hi B Scott,

Yes you are right. Demineraliser incooporate cationic and anionic resin, housed in two different tanks. Regeneration process is actually quite simple, using HCl and NaOH. Piping is installed in such a way that make backwash and discharge flow direcrly to the drain.

Of course, all in all, RO is simpler and better. But as I said, my water supply is prohibitive. so I have to look at other alternative.

[dick benbow]

Hi Mike!
About my asagi, I have 4 koi in my pond. I feed small amounts numerously over the day. I keep my ponds and filters EXTREMELY CLEAN.
My water looks like a jacucci.
I must admit I do not own a TDS meter but I do monitor my KH and GH
religiously. Here in the Northwest we use alot of water from rivers fed by
snow melt which helps us to start.

I have followed Mike S for some time and appreciate the contribution he has made to koi keeping.

[koi4all]

very interesting reading mike tomorow I will test my ponds and post results let me know what you think.
thanks for taking the time to reply
rick

[koi4all]

did some test today what do you think/recomened.
indoor tank ph 7.3
kh 240
tds320

small out door ph 8.4
kh 200
tds 250

main pond ph 8.5
kh 280
tds 360
rick

[Mike Snaden]

Hi Rick,

I'm no magician :wink: so, throw me a bone, by telling me the GH as well. I need to get an idea of the bigger picture.

Forgot to add... also include the same parameters for your mains water.

Mike.

[ivar]

Best hobbyists,

I'm a hobbyist from holland and follow this subject for a while.

Now my question is what is best tds level you can arrange in oure koiponds.

I have a tds level of a constant 80 ppm and the main tapwater is it also.

Should I also fit a reverse osmose to get it lower or is this also low enough.

Tanks in advance,


Ivar Schimmel
Netherlands.

pond

30 tons

filter

first line bubble bead 5 whit a Solution for the bbf. 12 m3 per hour

second line biosieve whit filter behind whit kaldness 200 ltr and a waterflow off 14 m3 a hour. And I gone put it up to 28 m3 a hour.

waterchange off 1% a day.

[daz 1]

Hi Mike,
I have followed this and many threads concerning soft water, in the hope to learn more.
But the cost of RO and being on a water meter prohibits me from the alley.
I remember the long thread on koichat , which you were looking at another way of reducing TDS, have you found out anything or is it still to early to say?
Cheers Dave.

[B.Scott]

Ivar,
Remember that TDS represents the total amount of all things disolved in the water. On the other hand things suspended in the water (not desolved) do not affect the number. Distilled water would have a TDS of ZERO. Of course we can't keep fish in a 0.0 tds water but a lower number does benifit development.

I think the first thing you want to ask yourself is will the fish you own benifit from having a low TDS? Do you have high grade Tosai/Nisai of fish you would consider of show quality then prehaps considering RO might be in order.

As I have stated elsewhere, fish will live just fine in a higher (read: harder) TDS/Hardness enviorment. The most important factors for basic koi health are stocking levels, water changes, filtration capacity, heating, fine partical removal etc. Somewhere down at the end of that list you will also find "low TDS" listed. For the average koi hobbiest I would consider the addition of a RO unit at the very end of my priorities unless I had very deep pockets and a deep desire to expand my learning experiance. In the mean time there are so many other things that one could improve upon that would make a much greater impact on the health and quality of the fish one keeps. I would tend to concentrate on these before I made the leap to a RO water purification system.
B.Scott

[dick benbow]

Ivar,
I didn't want the thread to get too far without giving you a warm welcome here! Thank-you for posting!
B. Scott has soome pretty good advice as to the value of TDS and if I can condense what he said , it would be that each person's pond is different and may not require that kind of expense/attention.
A couple of questions i might ask you would be the stocking load on your pond and how often do you backwash your BB. To me the best thing you could do is up your water exchange to 10% a day by adding a trickle of declorinated water 24 hrs a day and 7 days a week on a consistant basis.But if your TDS in the pond and the water source is the same then I'm not sure without r/o water you can do much better. The question is "how is your pond and koi doing? If it isn't broke you won't have to fix it!"

[B.Scott]

Dick,
Sharing the same country as Ivar, I can tell you that the dechlorinated water part is easy... our water isn't chlorinated at all. That makes it just a matter of putting the hose in the pond and letting it run Mind you with a 30 m3 pond, 3 m3 a day will will cost him about $130 a month if he has metered water (as the majority of Dutch households do). We do as a whole have good water though it is a bit on the hard side with an average DH of around 8-10.
B.Scott