TDS & Your Pond Water

[woodyaht]

Just wondering how people here look at the TDS readings and how they affect your fish. What are peoples options on lowering TDS, R/O units, what else? The little bit of reading I have done seems to show that low TDS will produce a lean fish that grow fast, where as hi TDS will produce fat fish with slower growth, i.e. my pond My well water right at the expansion tank is 383, my pond is 429, and my tap water inside the house using a water softener is 539.
Do these numers go side by side with ORP readings (don't have a ORP meter yet)?

[GazKoi]

Hi Chris,

great subject and something i am trying to understand more about at the moment.

TDS is a reading of anything and everything that is dissolved into the water in PPM.This will include of course the normal make up or GH & KH. When testing you GH & KH they should come out about the same.So the lower the TDS the better now this can be done to a certain extent by having a nice clean system with a good filtration system but at the end of the day if you water is high then the pond will be.

I am currently running an RO plant which i have only recently installed as i want to get my water quality a lot better.My tap water is 500+ but the pond normally runs around 460 which is not that good I have added the RO plant and now have a GH of 10 a KH of 7 a PH of 7.7 and a TDS of 310 so i am gradually getting down bit by bit.

My reason for doing this is i believe that having the better quality softer water will benefit the koi in the health side and is not for the fast growth as my koi have always seemed to of grown in my hard water.

Hope this helps a little...and hope Ive got it correct

[Bancherd]

Don't forget that TDS measures only ionic-forms of of whatever is in your water.

It is a great tool to monitor how dirty the pond water is. For example, I could see different trends in TDS-measurements while using different brands of koi pellets.

In my experience, the TDS probe and measurement are not as finicky compared to ORP.

Don't know about the effects on koi's shape and growth, no data.

[junglegeorge12]

I check mine regularly, if I do regular 10% changes it stays around 250-300, which is too high for me. I did get ahold of a filter system I have not installed yet. It should lower it to about 70 when mixed properly. The other interesting thing I found is a non R/O filter for the tap that removes down to 5 microns with a series of filters with different micron ratings. I want to try that, and get it right to 70, and see how things sit then. That is what alot of the breeeders in Japan have in terms of tds, with the gh and kh mentioned above.

Water like that also reduces flukes, sicknesses, and improves skin quality. I imagine for the koi it would be comparable to us living in a dust filled house, not very good for us.

[Rich L]

TDS is the measurement of disolved solids. It the water isn't run through a filter the readings may include particulates as well so running your water through the multi stage filter won't change the amount of disolved solids, only the reading.

An RO or resin softener will lower TDS, GH and KH to zero if done without precautions your fish will be harmed more than if you leave the water alone.

Some hobbyists bypass the RO, etc. with enough tap water to establish the GH/pH readings they want. If you like to work outside the box like I do, do like me. DON'T BUY EXPENSIVE FISH.