Reading Water

Hello everyone 

Unfortunately my poor betta finally died over the weekend. I'm now left with a 23l fluval edge with only one assassin snail in residence!

Just to make matters more complicated I plan on moving to Reading soon. Since I'm not sure what made my fish poorly and I will be moving soon I'm a little stuck as to what to do. I could get another fish and later relocate them.

I may donate my snail to a friend who has a tank and shut down my tank... It seems a little silly to go through all the complications of tank relocation just for my little snail! But then I will need to go through the whole cycling process again!! Ughh!! Though maybe I can use this as a chance to sell my tank and get a slightly bigger one!? Hmm may float this idea with the partner!! Or I might end up having a break from fish though I would prefer not to!

Whatever I decide I need some info about the water in Reading. I used a potential  flat's postcode go bring up this;

The water supplied in the SPENCERS WOOD zone is HARD water.

Calcium carbonate(CaCO3): 265 ppm test

Other hardness measurements
Degrees Clarke:19
Degrees German(DH):15
Degrees French:27

I can't find any mention of pH though unfortunately. What would this mean for my potential fish?

Would a battery powered pump help with keeping the bacteria alive for longer, especially with a bit of mature sponge media bound to it?

I recently bought another one from Ebay (much to the others half's dismay!!) but we had a power cut last week and although it didn't last long I got out the battery pump and put it in the big tank.
I had to make a decision as to which tank to put the only pump in and on the basis that the fish's needs were greater as there are more of them I chose them.

I felt so guilty though that I ordered another one for the shrimp!

It sounds as though the property gets it's water from an underground source pumped into that property alone, or perhaps that one and a few neighbours. It does mean that there is no water data available on-line on a water supplier's website, you would have to test it yourself for pH, hardness, nitrate etc and get independent tests done for everything else a water company tests for. The current occupants may have test results available.

Ah, I wasn't sure where Reading came on the hardness scale. Locally collected water could be different from that collected miles away and piped to an area.

I have come across people with well water that have UV lamps somewhere in the system instead of chlorine. Something else to find out about.

Well it's official that this will be our new home. I'll meet the landlord tomorrow so I can ask about the water etc then. I'm intrigued how it all works and how my fish keeping will go!!