Home water softeners and saltwater aquariums??

[burtonboi]

Hello everyone. We just purchased a new home build and I am planning on building a new 200 gallon in the home. The new home will have a built in water softeners system. Does anyone have experience in having one? How will his effect my aquarium?

Thanks!!!


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[pjoziasse]

If you have a water softener that uses salt, it displaces calcium ions naturally occuring in the water with sodium ions taken from the salt. The sodium helps the water feel "softer", but is not beneficial for human health (high blood pressure), so in most installations the water softener is plumbed to supply water to the water heater, showers, laundry, and bathrooms, but not to the kitchen sink (the cold water tap is usually assumed to be the source of water for human consumption) or to the outside taps (waste of soft water). Check if that is the case in your new home. If not, you might want to have the plumbing redone.
If you have an RO/DI unit, connect the source to an unsoftened water line, either before the water softener take-off, or from the cold water kitchen sink line.

[Simons]

In general it won't affect your aquarium at all. I have one in my house and it softens everything except the outside water lines. While I know the common interpretation is that it isn't 'good' to drink softened water that generally isn't true. The vast majority of softened water is less than 200 ppm of NaCl which is not really noticeable to anyone. Granted, it does depend on how 'soft' you are making the water.

My RODI strips it all out anyway when I am making water for my saltwater aquarium. I use softened water in my fresh water aquarium as well and there are no ill affects there either.

[JGT]

I also have questions about water softener. I thought that maybe a water softener would be benificial to me because I use well water. Would the removal of Cal ,MG and iron make my RODI filter more effecient and go through less DI resin and filters ?