Aquarium Supplies in Canberra

Canberra fishkeepers get clean, soft water and the coldest winters of any capital, and both shape how a tank behaves. Gallery Aquatica is a reef and freshwater aquarium store in Tingalpa, Brisbane, and our dry-goods range posts down to the ACT. There is no shop of ours in Canberra, but the equipment, treatments and test gear all ship.

What Canberra tap water means for your tank

Canberra's supply, from Icon Water, is soft, with hardness typically around 38 to 43 milligrams per litre and total dissolved solids near 72. Recent reporting has recorded no PFAS in the final treated water at either of the territory's treatment plants, and the mineral load overall is low. It is a clean, low-mineral base to work from.

That soft profile is a gift for planted tanks, shrimp and soft-water community fish, and it makes RO/DI treatment efficient for a reef tank because there is not much to strip out. The same softness means little buffering, so anything that wants harder, more alkaline water, a marine tank holding alkalinity or African cichlids, needs minerals added back rather than removed. The water is chlorinated, so a freshwater tank still needs the chlorine handled as you fill.

Your water is a blend, and the ratio shifts

Canberra draws on four storages. Corin, Bendora and Cotter sit on the Cotter River in the Brindabellas, and Googong Dam sits on the Queanbeyan River across the border. Cotter River water, along with any transferred from the Murrumbidgee, is treated at Mount Stromlo. Googong Dam water goes through its own plant at Googong.

The split between them is an operational decision, not a fixed ratio. Across 2022 and 2023 the three Cotter reservoirs supplied about ninety per cent of Canberra's water, most of it from Bendora, with Googong covering the rest. In a drier year, or during maintenance, that balance can move toward Googong, and the two catchments do not produce identical water. If you keep something genuinely sensitive to hardness, a Caridina colony or a reef tank running tight alkalinity, that is the mechanism behind a slow drift you cannot otherwise explain. Icon Water samples customer taps monthly and publishes the collated results each October, which is the place to check what your supply actually did over the year.

The cold is the other half of the problem

Canberra runs a real winter, with overnight temperatures that no coastal capital sees. An unheated room can sit well below the target for a tropical tank overnight and climb again during the day, and that daily swing is harder on fish than a steady lower temperature would be. Size your heater for the coldest room the tank will ever sit in rather than the average, and consider a controller so you find out about a failure before the livestock does.

The gear that suits Canberra water

• A water conditioner to neutralise the chlorine for a freshwater tank.
• Supplements and buffers to build hardness and alkalinity for reef and hard-water species, since soft local water will not hold them.
• An RO/DI setup for a reef tank, which runs efficiently on Canberra's low incoming mineral load.
• A test kit to keep pH and hardness on target, and an eye on winter temperature stability.

• Water Treatments & Conditioners
• Supplements & Buffers
• RO/DI Filtration
• Test Kits & Monitors

Shipping to Canberra

Dry goods travel to Canberra with Australia Post or Aramex, and the ACT carries no restriction on live algae or snails, so the livestock side is open here too, with fish handled Airport to Airport by arrangement. Dispatch timing, packing method and the live-arrival guarantee are all set out on our freighting and packing page, and everywhere we deliver is on the Australia-wide shipping page.

Common questions

Do you deliver aquarium supplies to Canberra?

Yes. All dry goods ship to Canberra via Australia Post or Aramex, and livestock is available to the ACT under our freight arrangement.

Is Canberra tap water soft?

Yes, with hardness typically around 38 to 43 mg/L and low TDS, and recent reporting shows no PFAS in the final treated water. It suits soft-water species well, while reef and hard-water tanks need minerals added back.

Where does Canberra's water come from?

Four storages. Corin, Bendora and Cotter on the Cotter River, treated at Mount Stromlo, plus Googong Dam on the Queanbeyan River, treated at Googong. The Cotter reservoirs supplied about ninety per cent across 2022 and 2023, mostly from Bendora, but the ratio shifts with conditions and the two catchments are not identical.

Do I need an RO/DI unit in Canberra?

For a reef tank it gives the cleanest baseline and runs efficiently on Canberra's soft water. Many freshwater keepers manage with a conditioner, adding minerals only if their species need harder water.