"Bawb2u" wrote in message news:Oe0Gc.24684$XM6.12752@attbi_s53...
Do I need to tear my water apart and rebuild it? Really would rather not
have to.
If not, what are the most important parameters to be looking out for in
the public water supply?

In my town they add chloromines and then Potash to raise the ph to
almost 9.0. I currently run a spare 55gl tank to use for water changes,
since I can't put tap water in my tanks. I fill the 55, use Amquel to
remove the cloramines and free ammonia and run a whisper2 filter with
RENEW resin in it for at least 48 hours. This brings the ph down to a
more reasonable level but seems to be a very inefficient way to do this.
Any suggestions? Thanks.


I'll assume this is a plant tank.
Add Amquel and do 50% weekly water changes and do not worry about it.
The initial pH is not that important.
If you aerate the water or add CO2 to it, it will come down in about
few hours.

pH in and of it's self is not an issue even with Discus and other so
called wimpy fish. My tap was 8.2 or so. Other places the tap would be
around 8.6 or so. No one has ever attributed fish deaths to large
water changes with plant tanks yet as long as you do them routinely.

So in answer to your question: no, you don't need RO for a planted
aquarium in virtually 99.9% of the cases. Will it hurt? No, but it
will make more work for you and will cost you more.
But will using RO help planted tanks?
Not in every case I've seen, except for 2 which were from well water
that had lots of salt and the other had lots of copper.


Regards,
Tom Barr