Hard to soft waters to improve water quality?

[farne230]

I have hard water here in San Antonio, Texas. The PH is 8.4 to 8.9, KH & GH run over 300ppm. Our tap water runs in this range since our water before treatment is from highly soluable limstones. I have purchased my second high quality kohaku and fear the water conditions may generate shimi's and may not be conducive for proper raising of kohaku and others (reduce growth and bad on skin development).

So, I would like some suggestions on what I can do to improve water quality & create a softer water - good for the skin - and maintain a constent PH.
Thanks,
Bob

[MCA]

Use a water softner for part of the new water...enough to bring gh and kh done to the ~100ppm level.

before we left Plano 4 years ago water softners were being banned because they dump too much salt into the sewage.

[mstrseed]

Use potassium not salt..........

[RayJordan]

HI Bob,
If I was going serious about treating the water to lower pH and hardness I would buy a large commercial water softener and a large reverse osmosis system and blend the RO water 50/50 with regular tap water. This will be very expensive. 1st the commericial sized softner and RO unit will cost about $10 thousand dollars total. Also you will need about 6 gallons of tap water to make 1 gallon of RO water which you will mix 50/50 with tap water. So a 1,000 gallon water change will take about 4,500 gallons of tap water to produce 50/50 blended RO/tap water. You will also need at minimum a 1,000 gallon holding tank to hold the RO water until needed.

[dick benbow]

I agree with Ray and RO as the method but as he points out the ration on waste is not good. Also expect to do a lot of exchanging of cartridges for
mechiancial trapping. GE makes a 2000 gal per day model that is reliable and will help bring the cost down a bit. It is used extesively by friends of mine in the UK for 20,000 gall ponds and less. What i did was to go onto ebay and get a 200 gallon a day model for my qt tank (2,000) gallons. I'm getting experience using it and it's costly but It has been educational. We're fairly wet here in the pacific NW and the gallons of waste water is a hassel to use
properly and not just waste.

[koinut]

Hi Farne,

You may want to read up on this thread regarding soft water.
Ion-exchange Softener for good skin?
Hopes this helps you with your question.

Rob

[farne230]

Rob: That is alot of imput. I am interested in this concept, and will re-invest in a TDS meter an Ph probe. I want to pick up again on these trends and how water quality in my pond is effected. I did this last year with a lighter load on the pond. I now have increased loading by 50% to 80% and the pond seams fine but I have not been taking measurements. Appreciate the info.