Santa Maria, CA tap water
Supplied by Santa Maria Water Department. Here's what its water means for your fish.
Disinfectant
Chlorine
Your water is treated with chlorine. It slowly gases off from standing water, and any water conditioner removes it.
Safety for fish and shrimp
Nitrate (NO₃)
0.2–3.8 ppm (Low)
Typical 0.5 ppm
Low, so water changes lower your tank's nitrate well.
Published by your utility: Santa Maria Water Department's 2024 water quality report.
Copper at home taps (first draw)
0.3 ppm (Worth knowing)
The 90th percentile of first-draw samples from homes: water that sat in household pipes for at least six hours.
Shrimp and snails are sensitive to copper. Water that sits in household pipes picks up the most; it drops once the tap has run for a minute.
Published by your utility: Santa Maria Water Department's 2024 water quality report.
Water chemistry
General hardness
460–1001 ppm
Typical 831 ppm
Hard. Ideal for livebearers and African cichlids. Soft-water species may struggle to breed.
Published by your utility: Santa Maria Water Department's 2024 water quality report.
Carbonate hardness (alkalinity)
34–39 ppm
Typical 37 ppm
Moderate buffering. pH should stay fairly steady.
Published by your utility: Santa Maria Water Department's 2024 water quality report.
pH
7.5–8
Typical 7.7
Most community fish do well here. Stable water matters more than the exact number.
Published by your utility: Santa Maria Water Department's 2024 water quality report.
Total dissolved solids
570–710 ppm
Typical 630 ppm
A rough measure of everything dissolved in the water. RO water reads near 0, so TDS is a quick way to compare waters.
Published by your utility: Santa Maria Water Department's 2024 water quality report.
Who supplies Santa Maria, CA
- 2024 water quality report
Santa Maria Water Department
Serves 98% of residents · Buys water from Central Coast Water Authority · Chlorine
Our data comes from public records and is still incomplete. Many utilities don't publish every number, so we're adding more all the time. Your city's range is a starting point: testing your own tap is the only way to know exactly what's in it.
Tap water lookup covers US cities only for now. Want to know why it matters? Read our story on tap water.
Compiled by Shoal & Stem from public records. Free to cite with a link.