What kind of water to fill my pond with?

[GreatDanesDad]

I live in Arizona, about 30 min out of Phoenix. Our water is really hard.

I have three water options. The first is to just fill the pond with the hard water from the fossett. The second is to use the water that comes through the water softener, and the second is to use the water out of our reverse osmosis system.

Any suggestions? Just turn on the fossett and fill the pool? Go throught the work of putting 5 or 6 hoses together to get from the water softener to the pond? Spend 5 days draining the tank of the osmosis system into the pond, again multiple hoses and add on a few days.

Is there a cost benifit to having different water in the pond to get started. Extra info, this is the first time im filling up my pond. It is 1750 gallons. It has no plants. It is about 4 feet in the deepest area.

Thanks for the info.

 

[sissy]

why not a little of all 3 and it should work out .and test it to see what you come up with I use one of those plastic water filters I had on my old well but cracked it and bought a new at tractor supply for under 20 dollars and put a charcoal filter in side it

 

[addy1]

With my pond in arizona I just used tap water, the fish did not seem to have an issue with the water. It is rock hard though

 

[crsublette]

Generally, harder the better since there are fewer concerns and less maintenance when compared to soft water.

Since it sounds like you're new to this, I would use the tap water. I think Waterbug lives in that general area and is what he uses.

My understanding is water softeners only reduce the general hardness (GH) of the water while the pH remains quite high and some softeners may have a salinity level too high for fish. Hardy type fish that survive in hard water ecosystems needs a high GH since the fish has a very hard time absorbing minerals so they need a higher volume of minerals. Osmosis system the same as water softeners, without the salinity concern, depending on how many stages, type of filters, there are to the osmosis system. Basic osmosis systems simply clean the water of sediment, carbons, metals, other toxins, and mainly lowers GH. More advanced osmosis systems with resin filters is what reduces the actual pH. There's much more to all of this, but that's the jest of it. Depends on how technical you want to get into reconstructing your water's ecosystem and the time spent in maintenance.

Hard water dictates high pH and high pH means ammonia becomes much more toxic to fish. So, do not over feed your fish and, if you register any ammonia at all in the water, then it is a serious problem and you need to use a pond ammonia binder chemical or build a very efficient bio-filter or a bio-filter that is sized slightly bigger for your water's volume.

Water naturally becomes softer (lowers pH) over time and introducing the hard water tap water can create a pH swing. pH swings of more than .3~.5 within 24 hours is known to harm fish's immune system. Probably be wise to look into implementing a constant trickle water change, which is extremely simple. For 1750 gallons of very hard water, for the water to become softer naturally, this process will take quite a while due to the huge volume of KH unless you are over feeding the fish like crazy and if the water's ecosystem capacity is overstocked.

If it is city water, then be sure to find out if the water is treated with chlorine or chloramine. Swimming pool test kits are pretty easy to get that test for these chemicals. Chlorine is pretty easy to remove from the water by simply spraying the water into the air or allowing the pond water circulate through a water fall or foutain of some sort to release the chlorine. Chloramine also binds ammonia so a bunch of ammonia will be released when the chlorine portion of chloramine is released; so, get a good pond tap water treatment chemical that will remove the chlorine and the associating ammonia. If you do big water changes, then a sudden influx of a high chlorine volume will hurt the fish; so, you will need to treat the water occasionally, but you can completely avoid this by doing a constant trickle water change system. However, for chloramines, you have to use a water treatment since the chlorine in chloramine does not freely release into the air and the chloramine will also release ammonia. So, find out if your city tap water is treated with chlorine or chloramine.

I tried not to get too technical, when it was avoidable, so that is the general jest of it.