Water filtered through household water conditioner

Hi,

I'm new here and have just been browsing around for a few days. I recently visited my LFS and was asking some questions. I mentioned that we had a Rainsoft water conditioner filtering the water in the household. I tested the water and came out with very soft, alkaline water with a ph of 7.8, no ammonia, no nitrites and about 20ppm nitrates. This was a test directly from the tap water. The employee in the LFS mentioned that I shouldn't even consider using the water that had been filtered and I should either use unfiltered water or buy bottled water. Is this information correct and why?

I've been setting up my tank, a 20 gallon only, and have been doing research before stocking it with fishies. We're also leaving on vacation in about 2 weeks and I wanted to wait until we return to stock the fishies.

Thanks for any input!

 

What your really looking for in the water is Chlorine or Chloramine which water treatment plants add to the water to keep it clean, but its also 100% deadly to fish, so no matter how filterted its said to be, theirs gonna be Chloramine or Chlorine. Bottled water or water jugs (like spring water) are nice becuase they havent had any chemicals added, but arent very pratical since they come in very small amounts.

 

Water conditioning

After filling the tank, I did use a commercial Chlorine, Chloramine, Ammonia remover. Are these not typically recommended? I can supply the brand name, etc if it will help. Should there be any concern on sodium/salt levels since the water conditioner uses salt for the filtration process?

Should I try this setup and see how it reacts? I'm planning a freshwater tropical tank overall. I kept and bred fish before but it's been about 15 years since I had a tank now so I'm trying to slowly get back into it.

Thanks for the response, btw.

-Zanne

 

Sorry I went thur your post rather quickly, Yeah you should be great, I usaly think the generic knock off (cheap) brands work the best, as long as you remove the ch's then the other things are fish dependent.

 

i had a friend who uses it and the fish looked great.

 

Thanks

Thanks so much for your replies, Obelix and FishDude!

 

Anytime, keep us posted about your tank