Deleatidium Posted April 18, 2002 Report Share Posted April 18, 2002 A very general question about water: Where do people source the water for their aquaria from? In Wgtn I used the tap water which was very high quality. I then moved my tank to my folks home in the Wairarapa (water from a bore) for a few months and used that in my water changes. It was good too apart being a little higher in nitrate than Wgtn tap water. Now in Palmerston North, I have been using the tap water here. All above mentioned water is treated with AquaPlus of course. I would be particularly interested in hearing from fishkeepers in Palmerston North as I note that at Wet Pets they have signs everywhere stating that Manawatu tap water is not suitable for use in aquariums. I tested it for nitrite, nitrate, pH, hardness, ammonia, even phospate and it appears fine to me as long as it is treated with AquaPlus or something similar. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jinx Posted April 18, 2002 Report Share Posted April 18, 2002 dont no about up north, but here in ch ch i use water straight from the tap,add a bit of white spot cure after each water change, no probs after 2 years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rob Posted April 18, 2002 Report Share Posted April 18, 2002 Can't comment on Manawatu water, but here in Hamilton I'm having no problems with the tap water. Out of the tap it is softish (about 7dGH) but alkaline 7.2'ish from memory - so no significant buffering preventing my getting it acidic. I'm a chemistry geek so I tinker with the water during water changes, have got a set routine now. Water for the discus and dwarf tanks get a few drops of sulphuric acid to get the tap water to neutral, water for the livebearer tanks gets some rock salt and some baking soda to boost the pH up a bit. All of the tap water gets treated with a dechlorinator. I also collect and store rainwater for when I need really soft and acidic water for breeding attempts. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ira Posted April 19, 2002 Report Share Posted April 19, 2002 I just use the water straight out of the tap, not treatment or anything. My house is on tank water though, so I've got heaps of water that is pretty much as perfect as you can get. Well, for the fish anyway...Not too bad for people as long as you ignore the slight green tinge when taking a bath. hehehe. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Disneyworld Posted April 19, 2002 Report Share Posted April 19, 2002 I have been fortunate enough to own fish in Europe, South Africa, and now NZ. In all these places the water differed enormously, but as long as I added Aquaplus there has never been a problem... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warren Posted April 19, 2002 Report Share Posted April 19, 2002 Most tap water in NZ has chlorine added to it. The quantity of chlorine is only about 1ppm max when it comes out of the tap. It is added to kill pathogenic bacteria from the water supply source and to stop outbreaks forming in the pipes. It is ok to use untreated tap water in most areas provided the water quality is good. The chlorine will be no problem if you are only doing 20% or less water changes (dilution of 1ppm to 0.2ppm - safe). Any more and the water needs to be treated with a dechlorinating product. This should be added to the tank after the level has been dropped but before filling back up with tap water. Another interesting point. I put the water in cold if it is for 20% or less water change. The fish seem to like it. It usually prompts spawning also. The total tank temperature might drop 2.5-3'C but thats ok because it is a slow change over about 30 minutes. During the filling process, the small tetras and sometimes the larger fish too will swim up the cold current coming in from the hose. The fact that they stay there fore some time hints that they like it. I am in Napier. Our city supply is untreated as it comes from an aquifer (basically spring fed). We have no chloride. The problem however, is the source feed for the aquifer is high in the hill where they drop a lot of superphosphate fertiliser. Consequently we have between 6-8ppm of phosphate in our water plus a lot of disolved organics. For many people this is not a problem. If you want to use intense lighting on a planted tank however it is a different story. The excess phosphate and the naturally high level of nitrate (from biological consumption of the organics) causes lots of green algae. If only moderate lighting is used there is not too much algae. The solution I use is Reverse Osmosis. I have a 400L/day RO unit that fills a 2000L tank outside the house. I pump the RO water into all my tanks as needed. To give the RO water some pH buffering I use a combination of salts (Sodium Bicarbonate, Calcium Chloride, Magnesium Sulphate and Potassium Sulphate - all available at the local pool center). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
casey05 Posted December 11, 2005 Report Share Posted December 11, 2005 hi deleatidium, im from palmy and i had been getting my water from wetpets as they said to use theirs and that palmy tap water aint good until last saturday when i was told at animates that you could use tapwater.talking about leading newbie confused teens astray.So with my new tank anyways i have used palmy tap water and aqua plus and cycle.getting tests done wednesday so i'll let you know if mines fine too Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted December 11, 2005 Report Share Posted December 11, 2005 In Blenheim we have no chlorine but they started adding lime and caustic soda to the water supply to raise the pH as it was 6.5 they claimed and affecting the pipes. It is 7.0 at our place and I just add water straight from the garden hose. No problems. Never use any chemicals, additives etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jammos Posted December 11, 2005 Report Share Posted December 11, 2005 hopefully i might be able to help. I have been in palmy for abot 4 years now with fish and originally i used wet pets water (when i had a 40 litre tank) now that has grown and then some and i don't want to haul hundreds of litres from them. I originally used straight tap water with aquaplus or stresscoat/zyme that was ok but every now and thien i noticed the fish weren't too happy. Sad to say that one day i was doing the above and within 2-3 days 80% of my tank was gone (hundreds of dollars of fish). i thought it was a bit odd but after experienting and researching I gave in and rang the council to see if they had done any thing different. THEY HAD! they said that they "every now and then" add extra chorline and copper and to my discussed that is why all my fishes skin had "burn't" off (not nice). So mroal of the storey is now i have a filter that gets rid of most of that stuff and everynow and then (every couple of months) i add some aqua plus. Hope this helps as this was my very bad experience taht also made me give up fish keeping. So i would hate for it to happen to someone else Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan Posted December 12, 2005 Report Share Posted December 12, 2005 I think you should take an account of the fish you lost down to the council and present it to the Mayor. You may not be recompensed for it, but just let them know what has happened and TELL them that before they do additions like that to the cities water supply, that the population should have air-time and adverts in the paper, at least a week before it happens. Man that stinks. Alan NZKA 104 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
casey05 Posted December 12, 2005 Report Share Posted December 12, 2005 thanks for that jammos sorry about your fish i agree with alan in saying that you should tell the council that fishkeepers are using the water and that they should make the public aware of when they are adding stuff to the water cos well we dont want innocent fishies "burning" to death or being killed off by chemical overdoses.I dont have any fish in my new tank yet but the water in it is being tested wednesday so from then on when it comes to water changes i'll stick to using wetpets water cos i dont want to run the risk of loosing fish.Thanks jammos i think you may have just saved me hundreds. :Doh and what kinda filter do you use jammos? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jammos Posted December 12, 2005 Report Share Posted December 12, 2005 hey i am using a spa pool type filter. You can buy them from wetpets for 170. you cann't get anything cheaper in town too, i tried. So if you have smaller tanks it will take a while to catch up to that. i wish i could alan but i am just a whimp when it comes to big wigs like that. I too felt like doing more than that at the time, but oh well onward and upwards Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suphew Posted December 12, 2005 Report Share Posted December 12, 2005 Casey, you can usually smell the chorline, I really notice it because my house has a header tank (low pressure) but my outside taps are on mains. If you let the water sit over night (or a couple of days if your really worried) in a bucket, it will be fine, it helps if you put an air stone in to move the water round. The copper wont hurt most fish. Out of interest do wetpets charge for the water, if so how much?? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
casey05 Posted December 12, 2005 Report Share Posted December 12, 2005 thanks suphew.yeah wetpets do charge.you can buy 20L containers there for $5 and well its $1 for filling a 20L container and anycontainer bigger is a donation.They have a tap outside at the back full of aquarium water so you just go in and pay $1 for 20L or donation and fill er up!I think though its like $2 for 50L and the rest is donation.Oh and i think its just recycled aquarium water from what they use that you (customers) get. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
casey05 Posted December 12, 2005 Report Share Posted December 12, 2005 oh and i forgot to say that i have a bubble wall plus powerhead filter and filter in the fishtank hood so that should get enough filtration and circulation through the tank.the powerhead has a spray arm thing that produces a slow flow around the tank.Does anyone have those master testing kits that are like $50 that you can get from animates cos i wanna know if they are worth getting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mickey-tropical-fish-mad Posted December 12, 2005 Report Share Posted December 12, 2005 i jus use tap water andd condition it with tetra aqua safe Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Warren Posted December 12, 2005 Report Share Posted December 12, 2005 hey i am using a spa pool type filter. You can buy them from wetpets for 170. you cann't get anything cheaper in town too, i tried. Do you use this to filter the tap water or tank water? What type of filter is it - carbon, pleated cartridge, DI, RO? The only type of spa pool filters I've seen are pleated cartridge, - no good at filtering tap water... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alanmin4304 Posted December 12, 2005 Report Share Posted December 12, 2005 If they are adding copper to the water supply in Palmy I would be asking them how much and why. It is toxic to fish and humans. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
suphew Posted December 12, 2005 Report Share Posted December 12, 2005 I wouldn't advise buying any test kits. Tipically you only use them a couple of times then never need them again until you have a problem which might not be for years. and the test kits expire after a year or two. If you want to check your water either take a sample to wetpets they should only charge a couple of bucks to do the tests for you, or ask around locally, there sure to be some one else with a full set of test kits that has only used them twice as well! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
casey05 Posted December 12, 2005 Report Share Posted December 12, 2005 oh okay suphew.thanks for that.i'll take a water sample into animates tomorrow and flag buying a test kit if im only going to need to use it once or twice. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
showtime Posted April 9, 2006 Report Share Posted April 9, 2006 How do you guys get on with the ph when using water straight from the tap. The ph at my place is 7.6. Chlorine isn't a problem as our filter takes that out. I used to use proper ph 7 and aquaplus in 20 litre containers for a few days before doing a change. Recently the lfs put me onto using ph down instead, however I seem to using heaps of this as the tank regularly is 7.4 - 7.6. I've a 4 ft tank, with harlequins, neons, angels, clown loaches and gouramis. I've tested rain water at 7, but read the pollutents in the air nowadays make this a bit dodgey. Your thoughts? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caryl Posted April 9, 2006 Report Share Posted April 9, 2006 pH down is only a temporary measure as you have found. Put some peat (make sure it is natural and has no mould inhibitors in it) in your filter or in some old pantyhose and tuck it out of sight in the tank somewhere. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alextret Posted April 9, 2006 Report Share Posted April 9, 2006 Details of PN water supply system are described at http://www.pncc.govt.nz/Council/Service ... Supply.htm There is no mention of copper (it does mention chlorination & fluoridation). I am using tap water with no chemical additives, but let it stay for about 48 hours to get rid of chlorine. I'm not sure if the effect would be the same if I used water straight from the tap - I never tried. Fishes seem to be OK. So are snails. So if they do add copper, it should not be very often, it is supposed to be a potent snail poison, is not it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alextret Posted April 9, 2006 Report Share Posted April 9, 2006 The difference in advice given by Wet Pets and by Animates is probably because Wet Pets sell water, and Animates sell water treatment products but do not sell water. So, both recommend what they sell. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Caper Posted April 9, 2006 Report Share Posted April 9, 2006 Since this is about water thought I'd ask here. Before this week, I was using 10L containers to change my water. I would add (as/directions) the needed water ager. Now I've started to use 4L containers, easier on the back 8). When using the 10L, it required a teaspoon of dechlorinator. So now I try to put 1/2 in each 4L. Is this ok? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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