I was wondering if anyone uses RO water when they do their water changes. If you do use RO water could you tell me why? I’m trying to decide if it is worth the money to buy one. Thanks.
Do you use RO water?
- Thread starter Jeremy S
- Start date
I dont use it, have no need. Unless your tap water has something troublesome in it, why would anybody use r/o?
People use RO to get rid of minerals, bacteria, chemicals or nutrients in their tap water. People who keep discus often use RO water since they are such finicky fish and don’t tolerate water with large amounts of nutrients or minerals very well. I would like to try to breed cardinal tetras and I was thinking RO water might help since I could get everything out of the water and then add only what I need like small amounts of KH and GH to keep the CO2 from dropping the pH.
I just learned several of the campus dorms still have copper pipes! Oh no! No wonder my poor ghost shrimps have not been living for very long (props to OrionGirl for alerting me to this). I have started using a mixture of tap water and home-filtered water in my aquarium. My Brita is supposed to remove copper, lead, chlorine, mercury, and some other chemicals I've never even heard of.
If the new conditions agree with the inhabitants, I will probably incrementally increase the percent of filtered water. Of course, I will continue to add a conditioner just in case.
I know that the home-filter is not RO, but it is not exactly tap water, either. Can we add a new option to the poll? Maybe also a bottled water option, too? I did that for my betta bowl a few times.
If the new conditions agree with the inhabitants, I will probably incrementally increase the percent of filtered water. Of course, I will continue to add a conditioner just in case.
I know that the home-filter is not RO, but it is not exactly tap water, either. Can we add a new option to the poll? Maybe also a bottled water option, too? I did that for my betta bowl a few times.
Last edited:
You have to be careful, I believe, about using just RO water. It removes everything from the water, minerals and nutrients. Fish do not consume all of their vitamins/minerals, they absorb them from the water. There are things you need to add to RO water to account for this, I believe....
My home has copper pipes, my prior home had copper pipes, the home before that had copper pipes - none has ever caused a problem for me (and I do breed FW inverts - which are very sensitive to copper). Copper pipes would only be an issue for fish if they were brand new piping and your water is soft and acid. Otherwise I would suggest getting a sample lab-tested (not LFS) for copper/lead contaminiation before investing in RO for anything other tha breeding extremely soft-water or blackwater fish.
I just jsut plain tap water now. I tried for a while to use RO mixed with tap to lower my pH and kH in my 15g ram tank but found it to be too much trouble as they were doing fine in my tap water anyways.
I think uless you are trying to breed some sort of finicky fish then using RO isn't necessary.
I think uless you are trying to breed some sort of finicky fish then using RO isn't necessary.
I use R/O water (reverse osmosis) for my Discus. I add R/O Right back to the water to put back the beneficial elements the fish need. All the impurities have been removed after filtering through an R/O water system.
The water here is very 'hard' here. I used to have persistent water stains on the glass and tubings near the water line, but not anymore.
What some may not know is there the fact that there is a 2 to 1, or even 3 to 1 ratio of 'waste' water to 'pure' water. Try and use the 'waste' water for hedges, the lawn, etc.. ..rather than just having it go down the drain.
Depending on how much R/O water you may need at a given time, the systems give 50 gallons per day, or 100 gallons per day. At least those are the most common flow rates.
HTH
Link: Aqua FX
The water here is very 'hard' here. I used to have persistent water stains on the glass and tubings near the water line, but not anymore.
What some may not know is there the fact that there is a 2 to 1, or even 3 to 1 ratio of 'waste' water to 'pure' water. Try and use the 'waste' water for hedges, the lawn, etc.. ..rather than just having it go down the drain.
Depending on how much R/O water you may need at a given time, the systems give 50 gallons per day, or 100 gallons per day. At least those are the most common flow rates.
HTH
Link: Aqua FX
Last edited: