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Hard Water - Avoid or OK?

We live in a rural area where the water is very hard. Should we try to find a source for softer water or is hard water okay for our equipment/hardware/software? Thanks!

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Permalink Reply by Alex Veidel on March 2, 2016 at 8:11am

Hard water is fine, however you are unavoidably going to need to do some work on it to get it usable for your system. Usually best to work with what you have though.

Your water is probably both high in pH and carbonates. Carbonates act as pH buffer of sorts, and well water can have a pretty high kH (carbonate hardness) level. First, I would invest $6 in an API kH test kit. That way you know what's going on with your water.

I also recommend using muriatic acid to do the bulk work of getting rid of those excess carbonates because it's so strong and cheap. You'll probably also need to treat your top off water with acid and then aerate it before adding it into your system.