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What is the best water to use when filling your tank? Should I use regular tap water or filtered water? Is there anything I should put in the water or do I just fill it and let it cycle before adding fish?

tap water is usually fine, filtered is generally better, since it is cleaner water, bottled water is even better, but unnecessary and expensive. let the water sit for a few days to allow it to dechlorinate, or use something like stress coat or another dechlorinator.

how are you going to cycle the tank?

proud father of a bunch of baby haps. http://picasaweb.google.com/Sktchy/BABIES

tap water is fine, but don't forget to use a good quality water conditioner to get rid of the chlorine & other nasty things in tap water that can kill your fish.

Cheers
TW

Tapwater is usually fine but do a few tests first. Run an ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate test on your tapwater. If all are zero then it's good if not depending on severity you may want to find another water source. Then take a glass of water, test the ph and preferably at least the kh, write the numbers down, leave the glass sit for 48hours, and test it again. If there's a huge change in the numbers or the kh and ph test really low(below 6ph or below 3degrees kh) then you may need to alter the water or just let it sit before every water change. If there are large problems with any of those tests you can either use bottled water or mix RO/distilled water with buffers. Do not use RO or distilled water plain. It has no buffering capacity and will result in dead fish.

Thanks guys...I'm going to buy a good filter (penguin, emporer or cascade) as was mentioned to me in my set up post. And I'll cycle the tank with a couple fish mentioned to me as well. I really appreciate the help!

Ok, so I filled the tank with tap water. I also put our Seachem pH monitor in the tank. I had purchased a Penguin filter and installed it in the tank. I think our tap water sucks because the sensor on the pH monitor is red and that means it's at least 8.6. Eek! Should I take a lot of the water out of the tank and replace it with our filtered water? Will that help the pH to be better than it is? Also, should I run the filter or just let the water stand?

And if I use mostly or all filtered water, should I still use a conditioner? If so, what is the best that won't break the bank?

High ph is no big deal unless your keeping sensitive wild caught fish from completely different water or trying to breed certain fish. You just want to make sure the ph is stable. I'm not so sure of the accuracy of ph meters like that. Above 8.6ph is nearly impossible to have. My water has gotten that way before but it takes a kh and gh of over 24. At that point drinking a glass of that water tastes gritty. There are so many minerals they seperate out and you actually end up chewing what feels like sand after every drink. I would bet it's slightly off and your water is no higher than 8.6 probably 8.2-8.4 unless your drawing your water straight from a limestone quarry during a drought. Most fish will handle that fine if you acclimate them carefully and very few fish stores actually use any water besides tapwater. Any fish you buy locally are probably already living in the same water. Just check for the ammonia, nitrite, and nitrate and I'd say your water is fine for most uses. If you have a specific fish you want to try to breed then you might need to mix softer water in with your current water. You can do 25-50% of the tank in RO or distilled and you'll end up with a ph in the 7s.

Yeah I am guessing the monitor is off a little. I still need to get a master test kit, but it looks like they are cheaper to order online than buy in the store. But then I will also have to wait several days to even test the water if I order online. So maybe I should just buy it in the store instead of having to wait for it in the mail. I think I will go ahead and change the water and replace it with our filtered water. I should have just used that in the first place, but live and learn I guess.

So should I replace some of the tap water with filtered water and use a conditioner? Or should I just use a conditioner with the existing 100% tap water already in the tank?

Also, once I do this, how long should I wait before adding fish?

I'm not sure exactly what your calling filtered water? What's it filtered by? If it's just a fairly simple or cheap water filter then it won't make much difference. Most drinking water filters use alot of chemical filtration and not so much mechanical. That does remove some contaminants but won't have much impact on the hardness and ph. If it's a system with an RO membrane then you can't use only that water but can mix it with some tapwater or powdered buffers.

Our fridge has a filter built in and that's what we use for drinking water now until we can get a Culligan system for our drinking water. That's what I mean by filtered.

I picked up some Seachem Prime and Stabilizer today and added that to the water. So I hope that will help balance things out. As for the pH, do I need to test to make sure it's not too high or should it be ok? Is pH something I really even need to worry about? There are no fish in the tank yet because I want to be sure the water is good before adding them.

I would go ahead and start running the filter if you haven't already to get some circulation and start growing the beneficial bacteria. You can add some fish food that will decompose and make some ammonia to feed the bacteria. You can order the test kit online to save the money and by the time it gets there a fishless cycle might already be done.

As far as ph goes I would get it to where you want it before adding fish, because trying to do this with fish can result in fish loss. It is a good idea to figure out the mixtures needed to make the ph of your tank if it is something different than your tap water. A good practice is using a bucket and knowing how much tap water and distilled water, or whatever you use to make it lower/higher.

The only real way to know if the filtered water will be any better is to test it. You can take it to your local fish store and they will usually test it for free.

Unless you are setting up the tank to meet a fish's breeding requirements, keeping a few certain sensitive fish, or keeping wild caught fish I wouldn't mess with it too much. The main concept is keeping things constant, this is not only with ph but all parameters. As previously said the fish you get from stores around you will most likely be in similiar water as yours. You can always ask the stores and they will gladly tell you the parameters of their tanks.

What does that mean, Bob? "Till the cows come home." Where have the cows been?

Thanks for that info, that helps a lot. We set up the tank and started the filter on Wednesday, so it's been running since then. I added Seachem Prime and Seachem Stabilizer yesterday and will continue to add the stabilizer for the next 7 days. I think I'll just leave the pH alone and also order the master test kit online.

Hi,
While I understand that you are concerned about the
pH of your water from the tap, you have not mentioned if
you are getting your water from your own well, or if its
source is the city water supply. Nothing has been said
about where you live or if your LFS where you will be
getting your fish from is on the same water supply.
In essence, much of the conversation could be for naught
if everyone has the same water, then the fish are already
acclimated to it, and you needn't worry about it.

As I recall, the filters within a refridgerator are, in
some cases, two stage, a filter for blocking solids,
such as pipe rust or sand, and a charcoal filter for
chemical filtering.

If you are both (you and the LFS) on the same water
supply, I would start the tank up, plant some plants,
turn the light on for 10 hours/a day and run the fiter.

Then, a day or two later, get some hardy fish to start
the cycling process. Personally, I would do the fishless
cycling, but then that's just me.

If you two are on different water supplies then I would
give some consideration to sticking with "hard water" fish
instead of trying to acclimate fish up to your present pH.
Sham is correct when mentioning the source, is it a well
through limestone during a drought? If your water is
drawn from a well then there will be cyclic changes in the
water chemistries depending upon the source.

You can acclimate fish from an LFS where their water is
around 6.8-7.0 to water with your pH, but it will
require another tank.
You should set up your primary tank and let it run,
and then put the fish initially, in a second tank that
you mix your tap water and RO or DI water in.
Mix the water so that it starts out at the pH/GH of the
LFS water, and then over a period of weeks, with each water
change, use less and less RO or DI water with each weekly
water change. That way the pH/GH will gradually be shifting
more and more to straight tap water. Once you reach the
same readings of second tank and straight tap water, you
can then shift the fish from the holding tank to the
primary tank.

Keep in mind that you will need to go through this
procedure with each addition to the main tank so, give some
thought as to what you are going to put into that tank.
For instance, if you are going to put some tetras in the
main tank, buy a school of that fish with as many as
you are going to eventually have of that fish at once,
and then do the next "batch."

Frank


-->>> The Confidence of Amateurs, is the Envy of Professionals <<<--

Our water is city water. We live in a small town of about 6000 people, so I have to get fish from Des Moines (IA) which is about 45 min. from us. The stores there use city water, but it's a different town than us. The tank has been running with a filter and plants (amazon swords) for about 2 days now, with the light being on (not continuously).

Then your only about an hour drive from me. Iowa is full of limestone but unless your right next to a limestone quarry(like me) your ph is probably not above 8.6. We are also most definitely not in a drought right now so ph of the water if anything will drop a little over the next month. The ph of water across Iowa is pretty consistent so aside from a few lfs that run a tank or 2 with RO water for fish like rummies all the fish are already adjusted to nearly the same water. Unless you want to breed those fish you don't need to worry about the ph. I doubt fridge filtered water has any difference either since it will only filter large particles. It probably wouldn't be worth the effort to get the water from the fridge.

Prime is a really good water conditioner. The stabilizer isn't needed. I'd leave the water how it is unless you want to breed something or you get fish from those few softwater display tanks some lfs have. Run the filter and start cycling as soon as you want. You can look into fishless cycling which is less harmful to the fish and you don't have to use specific cycling fish or worry about having any fish die.

Oh yeah, I didn't even realize you're in Iowa!! Thanks for that info...very helpful! Yeah, I do not plan to breed fish. Don't know the first thing about that and it doesn't really interest me anyway! I'll check out the fishless cycling...and maybe I'll get a couple hardy starter fish to cycle the tank. I eventually would like to add a beta and maybe some of the african dwarf frogs. Thanks a lot!!

And yes you're right, we're definately NOT in a drought!!

For freshwater tanks, tap water is fine. If you are talking saltwater, then that is a different story.
Tap water contains a lot of impurities, ie phospates. A high level of phospates can lead to an algea bloom in a saltwater tank. Not to big of a problem until you have a large hair algea bloom. It is very tricky to eradicate hair algea and may involve scrubbing the structure to help solve the problem. IF not taken care of, hair algea can lead to bubble algea. Once you have bubble algea, you will have it for the life of the tank. No one eats it, and if you try to pick it by hand, you may release even more spores from the bubble.
Long story short...R/O (reverse osmosis) water is the best for a marine tank.

"There is also a Clown Pleco in this tank some where. I am telling you, HE IS IN HERE."