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Since I set up my first tank I have been dealing with very hard water. My well water averaged around ph 8.0 and kh 15 but it depended on the season. Now I moved into an apartment with my boyfriend and tested the city water. Like my well water it comes out of tap below 7.0 and then raises to 8.0 but unlike at the house I have no space to store water for water changes. I also don't like the idea of not knowing any changes in filtration. Luckily bottled water refills for only $.25 a gallon but when I tested it the water started looking like distilled. No wonder when I went back and checked how it was filtered. First a particle filter, 2nd carbon, 3rd reverse osmosis, and finally a uv sterilizer. Nice but now I have to recreate useable aquarium water from nearly pure h20. What is the easiest way to do that,the cheapest way, and the best way? Basically what are my options? I've never had to deal with water that was too soft and this isn't just a matter of trying to increase 1 aspect of the water like when the gh of the well water drops in the spring.

I'd say unless you are doing very large water changes, I'd just add the water to the tank straight from the tap. My tap does the same thing and none of the fish even notice the difference. I even do 50% water changes for my plants and the fish still don't seem to notice any change, well except for the fact that they always look happier on water change days.

Someone might come and tell you different as this is just my experience. If you really want to buffer pure water I know that Kent makes an entire line of buffers. By that point I think you are talking about 40 per gallon which compared to the less than 1 cent per gallon (which might be a bit different in your area) out of the tap sounds pretty expensive over the long haul.

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Critical Fertilator: The Micromanager of Macronutrients

Sham,

The best and cheapest way for you to create your aquarium water is to use your tap water. Although your fish are sensitive to pH changes, they have the greatest sensitivity when pH decreases. If the pH increases, the effects are negligible.

So, do your water changes with tap water. Since it is city water, be sure to condition the water with the apprpriate dose of Prime or similar product. If you do a 50% water change with tap water at 8.0 pH to an aquarium with a pH of 7.5 then your pH will rise to 7.75. If it is a 20% water change your pH will rise to 7.6, not enough to worry about.

The result will be that your fish will have a consistent water mix, the most important thing to your fish!

__________
"To steal ideas from one person is plagiarism; to steal from many is research."
researched from Steven Wright

The water from the tap is 7.0 or below. The lowest test kit I had on me was 6.8 ph and it was even lighter brown than that. It raises to at least 8.0 after 48 hrs. I haven't let this water sit but it tests higher kh than my well water so logically it would end up at 8.0+. It is also saturated with co2 to the point fish put directly into this water cannot breathe and will be gasping at the surface even if they come from water with the same ph. I lost my farlowella and a few otos when I first started from doing water changes directly from the tap that's why I started storing water but I can't store enough water here. On top of all that I will have to worry about chlorine which I didn't before and the potential for the water company to decide to change the amount of chlorine. I've heard of plenty of tanks wiped out because the water company changed their filtration methods without warning.

I emailed seachem about using their alkaline and acid buffer but the whole system looks too complicated. I also don't like the fact it doesn't work unless you add it directly to a tank with live fish and the ph changes if you leave it sit without any acids or buffers being produced into the water. It seems like a rather unstable system. I was thinking about using Kent's ph stable for the kh which says it's just carbonic acid salts and then using seachem's equilibrium to control the gh. I've used equilibrium before when my water gets diluted in the spring and it's done a good job.