what type of water to use

[valerie a]

i use bottled purified water in the tank is this the right water to use? i have well water would that be better?

[Dtld9]

every once in awhile put in regular water so you can put the trace elements back in just make sure you condition it first. But the bottled water is fine.

[Stillwater]

Hello valerie a, and welcome to the forum,

While some well water can be very tricky to work with, you probably would still be better off using your water from the tap. Make sure you use a water conditioner that neutralizes, chlorine, chloramines and Heavy Metals.
Add the conditioner to any tap water before putting the water in the tank.
This applies to water changes and top offs also.

If you do decide to use your tap water, do not change all the water at one time. Other wise you will shock your fish.

And if you really want to be on the safe side, use a liquid test kit and test your tap water. You will need the test kit any way for testing your tank water.

Also are you using any type of softener or conditioning system on your well water?

[Oldman47]

Slow changes are better. If you have been using one kind of water and decide to change to a new one make the change slowly. Change is a fish killer if it is done too quickly. You might try doing 10% at a time every day or 2 so that the fish just experiences a very gradual change in the water pH, solids, etc. You can get a fairly large change done in a couple of weeks without ever subjecting the fish to that big 30 or 40% change that would hurt them if you just do it in baby steps.