Soft Water vs. Well Water

[Kathy]

TG, I just saw your post. I'm going to check on that master test kit, although with recent water changes my tank is mostly softened tap water now.

I live in Michigan, near the border of Wisconsin, in a city called Iron Mountain. The name says it all, a lot of iron mining in this town's early years, a lot of iron in the terrain.

My tank paramters indicated that the tank cycled in August. We had ammonia and then nitrites and nitrates and then no ammonia. It's a 30 gallon tank, with 2 filters and a bubble stone. I've never had more than 3 fish in the tank at any one time, and I usually keep it to the same 3 fish I start with, I learned not to add any along the way. Now, I only restock when all of them die. The tank has never been fishless for longer than a week, and in that time I maintain the biofilter by adding household ammonia(nonfoaming, no perfume, no dyes)and making it sure it clears before adding fish. I only heat when the fish are ill. The current 72F is room temp.

Here's a bit of my fishy history (from when I started keeping records)

From the last go-round:

11-7-06 the tank had been empty for a week, was being maintained with household ammonia (nonfoaming,no perfumes, no dyes) level never above 0.5ppm. In that week phantom midge worms(glass worms)took over the tank, don't know where they came from as I never fed them to my fish.

The biofilter pad was removed, rinsed, and maintained in a bucket with ammonia.

The tank was PP'd 10am to 10pm, then deactivated with hydrogen peroxide. All the water was changed, and the gravel vacuumed vigorously. You wouldn't believe how many worms and tube houses there were! The water was a mix of tap and well.

By 10:30 pm the tank was back up and running. I added ammonia to bring it to 0.25ppm. Aquasafe was added.

11-8-06

I tested parameters--NA:0, NI:0, GH:100, KH:180, pH: 7.8, NH3:0, T:78F, Salt 0.1%

Purchsed 3 new fish at WalMart, all from the same tank. All looked healthy, were swimming normally, and had no obvious abnormal spots that I noticed at time of purchase.

11-9-06

NA: 0.5ppm

Noticed the black moor had some white areas by its eye and on its tail. Not ich.

Started quick cure as precaution and part of quarantine.

11-12-06:

Black Moor doing worse, not eating.

Started medigold food.


11-13-06:

Black Moor died during the night.

Tank showing some nitrAtes now: 0.5ppm.

Continuing with Quick cure and medigold.

11-14-06

Orange comet developed blackish areas on head and upper body, still eating.

11-15-06

NA: 20

glass worms are back.

last dose of quick cure.

11-16-06

NA:10
NI:<0.5
NH3:0

30% water change, silk plants cleaned(midge worm tubes), filter boxes and biofilter cleaned, new carbon put in. Heater unplugged, temp down to 72F.

11-20-06

NI:0

Orange comet bottom sitting, hanging out in bubbles from bubble stone, fins clamped.

Carbon removed, another round of QC started.

11-21-06

Remaining 2 fish given 0.6% salt bath.

11-23-06/11-24-06

medigold day 12/13
quick cure day 4/last dose 11-23

orange comet breathing rapidly, more balck areas, tail white and fraying, not eating
calico fantail rubbing gravel and flashing, not eating as well

salt increased to 0.2%

11-25-06

NA:20
salt at 0.3%

orange comet perked up, rummaging in gravel
calico fantail not rubbing/flashing

started noticing dark spots on inside tank walls

midge worms less active

11-26-06

last feeding of medigold, swithced to progold

11-27-06

20% water change

11-28-06

orange comet's breathing seems stressed again, hanging out by heater

another round of quick cure started, thinking maybe costia

11-30-06

orange comet died today

12-1-06 to 12-22-06

calico fantail doing fine these 2 weeks,
then started with not eating, hanging out in filter outflow

no further midge worms

tank glass and ornaments full of brown sludge

(I must admit, I didn't write it down and I can't remember if I did a water change after the 27th, but I was still checking parameters which were fine, the only change was the brown sludge was spreading. I was ill.)

parameters:NA-- 20-40, NI: 0, GH: 100-150, KH: 180, pH: 7.8,
Temp: 76-78(had turned up), salt 0.3%.

12-23-06

30% water change, tank glass and ornaments cleaned.

Calico gasping at surface and then floating nose down.

temp turned down.

12-25-06

calico seems better, not floating nose down, swimming some

another 30% water change
cleaned out filter boxes and pads, air stone

12-26-06

calico eating and swimming

12-27-06

beginnings of ich? some white spots noticed.

12-28-06

not eating again, hanging out at surface, gulping bubbles, or hanging out under silk plant

a 0.6% salt bath, afterward white spots gone

another 30% water change

And that's the history of this attempt. I watch them pretty closely, check parameters often, do pretty regular water changes.

A lot of the why's of the treatment were on the advice of members at another board.

Smiles,

Kathy

[Kathy]

Okay, I've been surfing around here and I skimmed across the info on cyanobacteria.

Now I'm wondering if maybe that was my problem. You know the brown sludge.

Seemed to grow faster with heat, plus there was a lot of detritus in the gravel when I cleaned it--midge worm tubes, uneaten food, poop.

Maybe it's wasn't iron at all, or maybe that was just adding to the problem, with some of the water being unfiltered.

Dunno!

Smiles,

Kathy

[BJP]

Okay, soft water it is. I was never worried about softener salt being in the tap water. My hubby explained how the softener works. Yes, a normal softener for the house, my hubby adds the salt.

It should be fine for goldfish. If you ever want a live plant tank have hubby switch to the potassium chloride instead of the sodium chloride.

As far as I know the well was drilled through gravel and stone, the report says rotary. There is 40 feet of 6" diameter steel casing. No screen in the well.

I wish I had been there to watch. I've never had the chance to watch a boring (rotary) rig in action. Just guessing here but if there's 40 feet of 6" steel then I'd say the hole has to be deeper than that. The top 38 to 40 feet was probably the mud and topsoil. The solid casing with no screen is to keep that from directly pouring into the well and filling it. Here the hole size is typically 30 to 36" with concrete lining installed in 3 feet sections. The depth below the casing is probably in soft sandstone that the rotary rig could still penetrate through but not down into hard rock like granite and such. In the short term the steel should be superior to the concrete tiles around here. I've seen very few installed around here that didn't have leaks every 3' contaminating them. The steel should have nowhere for any leaks to occur until it starts to rust holes in it which may be 20 to 30 years down the road or more depending on a lot of variables. A 6" hole doesn't offer much recovery rate for surface water in a bored well so I'd guess they probably found a crack in sandstone or some other soft surface formation providing decent flow maybe under some pressure. I'd assume that if they'd hit some gravel layer with lots of water in it they'd have had to install a screen to keep the gravel out but your report says otherwise. It would have been fun to watch. I'm not sure how long it takes them. With all my air and large air driven hammer I'm usually at 40 or more feet in about 7 minutes. Once I reach granite or other hard rock types my penetration rate slows to maybe 20' in 8 minutes but in some areas I get into shale all the way and I'm back to 40' in 7 again. Enough about that, back to the fish.

[Tommy Gun]

Now I'm wondering if maybe that was my problem. You know the brown sludge.

All too well! (Pun intended)

Seemed to grow faster with heat, plus there was a lot of detritus in the gravel when I cleaned it--midge worm tubes, uneaten food, poop.

This is usually a good sign of a tank having the ability to support a lot of life that we do not wish to promote like Cynobacteria or even just plain algea. Having all of this wasted food and detrius like excess fish wastes adds a lot of nutrients to a tank and the algea and cynobacteria can feed from it and thrive. While this is not the only reason for these things occuring, they are certainly a cause for concern.

Maybe it's wasn't iron at all, or maybe that was just adding to the problem, with some of the water being unfiltered.

I would think that if your water was very 'rusty' as usually is the case with large brown deposits like what you had initially described, you would certainly be able to smell that. I also would have thought that the carbon filter media in your tank, if any, would do a lot to keep that stuff out of the water.

There is a couple of things you can do from here. In the past, I had been confused as to whether or not I had a big algea problem or a cyno problem. I was advised to drop a very small dose of antibiotic medicine into my tank to see if things started to clear up. Miraculously, they did! I kept up with the very very very small doses (I dosed enough for a 10 gallon tank in my 55 gallon tank), being very vigilant with my water changes between doses, and the problem cleared right up and has not come back since. The reason for the very very very small doses is because these antibiotics are non-selective in their killing, meaning they will take out the benificial bacteria as well as the bad bacteria all at the same time. So, unless you want to completely uncycle your tank over night, then I would go as slow as possible.

Another option would be to attempt to reduce the amount of nutrients in the tank as much as possible. I know that this sounds a bit harsh, but you really do not need to feed any of your fish more than one time a day, and even then, only really small portions are needed. Keep in mind that most fish are 'opportunistic feeders', meaning they will attempt to eat every time food is found, or in this case, put in front of them. No fish really needs to eat as much as they appear to be hungry, and the behavior of coming to the top of the tank every time you walk by is becuase they recognize you as a food source, not neccessarily because they are hungy (opportunistic eaters). It is much like Pavlov's Dog...everytime the bell rang, the dog would salivate like it was hungry.

[BJP]

Tommy's doing a great job with the fish so I'll stay with the well for a bit. It occured to me with 6" steel and casing we could be right back to the problems I first suspected with a bad seal at the bottom of the casing letting muddy water directly into the well. It's hard to get a perfectly round hole in rock to get a round casing to seal up in whether it's steel or plastic. That puts me right back to the possible solutions if a problem is found through investigation including a packer placed right below the bottom of the steel casing to seal off any leaks coming by the casing and to protect in the future from the steel rusting holes in it. If the seal looks good when checked with a camera and the source water itself is the problem lower down then I've seen smaller casing, say 4" inserted top to bottom with a feww screen sections and a fine gravel or large sand poured in between to form a filter kinda like we see with undergravel filters in aquariums. If the wells not too deep then that may not be that expensive of an option.

[BJP]

A side note, when you run out of gift ideas for the aquarium fanatic that has everything, try a well camera for a gift. You can get some great close ups of fry in the tanks or fish in hiding and with a 500 foot reel I've even laid the camera out back in the lake where the bass were spawning and rolled the line up to the house to watch in the privacy of the living room.

[Tommy Gun]

I'll stay with the well for a bit

I am enjoying your information anyways! I am learning a lot from it about wells. I have no experience with well drilling, but have an idea how they work from my past experience in the landscape feild. While I was doing that kind of work, we used to dig deep drain tiles that ended in a 'weeping well', as we called it, to provide an underground area for rainwater to collect and 'weep' into the gravely and rocky substrate. I can clearly recall how we would get about 20 to 25 feet down and then have to dig, by hand usually, through some very compacted sand or even limestone. I can tell you it was nothing close to being fun!

I am also familiar with the Iron Mountain area...I used to live in Crivitz, WI, and go to the UP through Iron Mountain. I would suspect that the terrain is much the same as in Crivitz, as well as even down here near Milwaukee. I would think that such a shallow well would be hard to do and keep sanitary, as well as almost being illegal from what I read from that other site I posted about the iron bacteria. But then again, like I said, I know nothing of wells really.

[BJP]

But then again, like I said, I know nothing of wells really.

You'd be amazed how many people don't have a clue or for that matter even care as long as what comes out of the tap has sufficient pressure, no clor, no taste that's bad and no odor. Now that the drought conditions are behind us in my area for a while I'm working mostly new construction. Wells put in for builders instead of actual home owners. All of them get a well cap with our company name and contact info including phone number but the phone almost never rings. You'd think at least some would call and ask a few questions about the water supply for the home they just moved into.

Very few people take the time to rechlorinate their wells regularly to keep them sanitary. I rechlorinate mine yearly or after any plumbing. Bacteria can grow backwards from the pipes to the well. That's one of the reasons bathtub faucets now have to be above the overflow and it's still a good idea to keep your toes out of the faucet. Eventually the government is going to step in and require more tests and done more than just when you first move in. Some of the water associations are trying to act preventatively to come up with a reasonable list of tests and a reasonable retesting rate that most people can afford. If not and the government has its way we may end up paying thousands of dollars for hundreds of tests.

Even my father for years went around bragging about never chlorinating his well. that was one of my biggest challenges getting him to stop. Last winter he had tohave a sample tested for a well at a military base I just drilled. He took four samples in since he was going anyway. One from the well I drilled and chlorinated afterwards. One from my well which I chlorinate yearly, one from bottled water and one from his well. The only one that flunked was his. Of course mom panics so I get to spend a weekend chlorinating their wells while they escape to the beach for a getaway. Since then he's kept quiet about the topic. Nothing like a little coliform and echloi scare to seal the lips.

This all kinda ties into aquariums. Water is life to the fish. The more we know, the better we can care for them. Unfortunately the tank looks good from here thing applys to many people just like with the wells. They've had the tank running 3 years with an undergravel filter sucking everything down out of sight so the tank looks great. I finally talk them into allowing a couple simple tests and find hardnesses over 400 and nitrate levels so far off the chart you'd think they filled the tank with undilluted "Cycle".

[Kathy]

How interesting and informative this thread has become.

No problem with the detritus in the tank at present, my fish isn't eating! I hope it's just an adjustment to the change in water.

I just vacuumed the old food (yesterdays) off the bottom, and changed a bit of water. Should be pretty much all softened tap water now.

The tank looks a lot cleaner than it has, there are still some brown deposits at the gravel level and down. If this fish doesn't make it, I'm going to change the gravel and clean the tank bottom before I start again.

Which antibiotic should I use? I have a few on hand,--tri sulfa, maracyn 2, and fungus clear., otherwise I can buy what is needed.

What effects does the cyanobacteria have on the fish?

My husband does periodically pour bleach down the well. He's pretty up on the maintenance and water quality thing.

Thanks for everything,

Kathy

[BJP]

Still saving the fish stuff for Tommy.

My husband does periodically pour bleach down the well. He's pretty up on the maintenance and water quality thing.

I would invest in a simple chlorine test kit if you can locate one. In some cases it can take a month or more to extract all the chlorine from wells. We obviously don't want surprises we didn't treat for added to our fishes tanks or in my case turning my blue fishy wash cloths and fishy towels dull and faded. I'm assuming you have a submersible pump located in the well below the crack supplying the water. When we pump to remove chlorinated water from the well it tends to pump mostly from water supplied by the cracks and from the volume of water in the well above the pump. A 6" well should only have around 1.5 gallons per foot of actual storage outside the cracks. In my case my flow rate into my well is less than the flow rate from the cracks so as I try to pump out my water with chlorine, the water level drops in the well continuosly until it reaches a depth that the pump flow reduces to match the rate of the water coming in aka the pumping level. As the water drops it leaves residual amounts of chlorine stuck to the sides/wall of the well. It also leaves most of the chlorine below the pump in place. After a period of time my water tests show no chlorine in the water being pumped. Then I shut the pump off for a day giving the well time to refill to the static level. This gives it a chance to remove more of the chlorine from the walls as well as dilluting the water remaining in the well.. The next day I repeat the procedure. Then again and again until I finally get a day where it never tests any chlorine. Then I can flush out the hot water tank and hot water lines in the house which can also take a little time to empty of chlorine.

* It may be possible to filter the chlorine preventing it from getting into the hot water tank and other house lines but this would not allow the chlorine to disinfect those lines and I can't advise that.

When I first started my pump was hanging at a depth only 2/3's down in the well, 400' of 600 foot total depth. In this case it would take me a month to extract all the chlorine. Later I lowered my pump down to about 580 feet. Now I can generally extract all the chlorine in about a week.

The test kit I use used to be manufactured by aquarium Pharmaceuticals. I haven't seen it offered in a while but there should be other companys offering one in the hobby and at work I've even used those swimming pool dip stick multi tests to be sure. That's when I realized the PH can also go waaaaaay up when chlorinating with the calcium tablet style chlorine.

If you're not sure, test and retest a few times but give the sink a minute or so to run to extract all the water from the lines and give the pump time to push a fresh sample from the well through. If not you may be repeating yesterdays test.

I'm not a chemist by any means but well chlorination finally gave me one of those Eureka moments when I finally grasped how a simple one drop dechlorinater can make so many claims like dechlorinating, adding electrolytes, thickening the slime coat, etc.

One day I was helping a customer pump out and rechlorinate his well after failing the coliform test after the first chlorination. I'd been pumping crystal clear water for a couple hours,I add the chlorine tablets and circulate, he shows up and adds like 10 gallons of liquid bleach. We go in the house to run chlorinated water through all the lines when all of a sudden the water clouds up and tons of grit get deposited in the new bathtub. The only answer I can come up with is the excessive chlorine caused a partial well collapse.

A few days later it occurs to me that maybe I just did the same procedure I do all the times to dechlorinate aquarium water except backwards. If the chlorine reacted with some of the minerals found in the walls of the well then it may have formed salts, sodium chloride or any of the other chlorides, I don't know which.

If that happened then they should have dissolved into the water in the well destabolizing the well walls and causing the collapse.

That's when it occured to me that maybe the opposite happens when we dechlorinate our aquarium water. the simple cheap minerals in the dechlorinaters combine with the chlorine to form salts. That removes the chlorine from the water, adds electrolytes and stimulates the slime coats, etc, etc all at the same time from one reaction.

Then it occured to me with a little smile that I bet there are a lot of people out there swearing they never add salt to the tank but possibly are all along.