changing water hardness

[starrfish71]

so, can anyone give advice on how to change the hardness of water. I live in Florida, use my well water, and have discovered that even with my efforts to lower the pH, the hardness is still off the scale. I have been told to just get the RO unit, but right now it's not in the budget.

I have some plecos that I believe live fine in the hard water, but I am really hoping to breed them, so, other than an RO unit, any suggestions?

also, will hard water effect them in growth/longevity?

I currently have 2-L-24's, 2-L-239's, one mango, and one baby royal...

[MatsP]

There really is only three ways to remove minerals from water:
- distillation
Boil and subsequently chill the water, leving the minerals in the boiling vessel.
http://www.apswater.com/page43.html

- Reverse Osmosis
Pass the water through a filter that stops, essentially, anything but water.
Link: http://www.apswater.com/page44.html

- Deionization
Using a special resin to remove minerals.
http://www.apswater.com/page38.html

Of these methods, the RO filtration is the least costly, at least over the longer term.

Deionization is "better" at producing really pure water, but also more costly, as well as "overkill" - for best results with this, you probably want to run the water through RO first, which sort of kills it for aquatic use - good if you want REALLY pure water for computer chip production or lab use, but for aquatic purposes, just removing most of the minerals will be fine.

You can lower the pH by adding various organic matter to the water, peat being one of the more often used. But it takes a whole lot of peat to make any noticable change...

The web-site that I used to find descriptions of different methods for water purification also has a "Suggested methods" sheet: It says, for TDS to use Reverse Osmosis as the first suggestion, and second Deionization. Here: http://www.apswater.com/page77.html

--
Mats

[djw66]

Starrfish,

There's a product called a 'Tap Water Filter'. You can get 50 to 150 gallons per DI cartridge, depending on how mineral-laden your tap water is. There is no waste water. You can find it here: http://www.petsolutions.com/Tap+Water+F ... 44-C-.aspx

Its less than 30 bucks, and the replacement cartridges are about 20 bucks. As you can see, the price would accrue quickly, but if you just have one or two smaller tanks, it might be a stop-gap until you can afford a good DO/DI system.

Dave