RE: [RML] Re: Filtering tap water (was unhappy xmas)

Matthew Stanton (matthews at sf.nsw.gov.au)
Fri, 29 Dec 2000 12:00:08 +1100

It occurs to me that a lot of you could get around the tap water problems
just by collecting and storing a bit of rain water. Back when I was on town
water I just cut the top out of a plastic 240 litre drum and sat it under a
broken bit of down pipe. The drums cost me five dollars a piece but I have
since discovered that you can get them for nothing from large bakeries or
other food producers. They only get used once for things like lactic acid or
other ingredients. Once you have cut the top off the barrel it is easily
cleaned. The cost would come if you wanted to have a pressurised system (as
opposed to bucket brigade). A solid stand to hold the barrel(s) 1.5 m off
the ground and the hose/pipe with tap might set you back a few dollars.

Obviously this won't suit everyone. During a drought you would either have
to drastically cut back the feeds or go back to using the tap water.

I used to think it would be pretty neat to have a tank set up that only had
water changes when it was raining, i.e. the water flows off the roof and
into the tank which then overflows the tank to a drain. The technical
difficulties associated with such a system for tropical fish in a temperate
climate have made me change my mind. If I lived in BrisVegas I'd give it a
go.

Phil's note about Canberra tap water is interesting as it is similar to a
problem I have with my 105000 litre concrete water tank (10 years old). The
pH is often off the scale but the hardness is actually very low so as soon
as I put the water into an aquarium, the substrate easily "resets" the pH to
a more midrange level (within a couple of minutes). No need to use any
bottle products. I wonder if they use concrete water pipes around Canberra?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Phil [SMTP:peekay at acay.com.au]
> Sent: Thursday, December 28, 2000 6:21 AM
> To: rainbowfish at pcug.org.au
> Subject: Re: [RML] Re: Filtering tap water (was unhappy xmas)
>
> I live in Canberra, where pH out of the tap is often well into the 9's. I
> usually use Seachems Acid Buffer and have found it cheaper to use in the
> long run than sodium biphosphate as it is much more powerfull and has the
> added advantage of being phosphate free.
>
> Canberra water is very strange, it has almost zero general hardness, zero
> carbonate hardness and very high pH. It is good though, very easy to
> manipulate for any species.
>
> Phil.