Would Ro Water Benefit Rays?

[dave_oddballs]

basically i have been interested in buying one for a while, i will be keeping rays and other expensive and large fish, i have found a 50 gpd ro unit brand new for cheap off a guy who has no need for it.
what i want to know is would it benefit my fish?
and also do you need to add anything to ro water before you put it into the tank, as far as i can work out it takes everything so there is not even nutrients left in the water.
just a bit of info please and really just whether it would benefit my fish having one, and baring in mind its about half the price it is new.
cheers,
Dave

 

[Mr._Fishy]

It's not worth the hassle imo. I'm using a 50 gpd for my 10g. It will pretty much suck to try and do water changes with for a 700g or whatever you have.

The only way I can think of you needing it was if your water is extremely hard. In that case you would need something a lot more than 50 gpd.

And yes, it pretty much takes everything out of the water. You have to add supplements to it.

 

[dave_oddballs]

its 1072 litres, 265 gallons, if it does 50 gpd then i will have more than enough ro water per week to do my 25% water changes, my water isn't hard its not too soft either, neutural lol comes out of the tap at ph 7.0 also. just thinking it might be better, why do people use them then if they aren't any good?

cheers,
Dave

 

[Mr._Fishy]

Wow I was way off with tank size. I think someone else with a similar user name must have had something like that.

People typically use it to adjust the hardness and ph and to strip the water of impurities. I use it with my 10g sw to get all the impurities out. When I had discus years ago I also used it for this reason.

If your water is neutral, I say don't bother with it. You will (or at least I would) drive myself crazy doing water changes like that. Not to mention storing 60g of water would be a pain in itself. And btw, the 50gpd is in an ideal world with warm water. I get probably 2/3 of the 50gpd with my current setup running off of a very cold tap.

 

[dave_oddballs]

ok i hear what your saying, but regarding the amount of ro water produced, i would only need to do 25% water changes every week so i would need about 70 gallons per week, you not think id get that out of a 'supposedly' 50 gpd ro unit?

 

[Mr._Fishy]

Well, I suppose you would if you let the thing run for a few days. I don't know if it's a concern to you, but keep in mind you will also wind up with quite a bit of waste water

I still fail to see why you want to/need to do this though. Seems like a waste of time to me unless you have to get rid of impurities, which as far as I can tell, you don't. I don't mean this in a critical way, I just don't see it as necessary or ever worthwhile.

 

[dave_oddballs]

i just want the best possibly water quality for my fish.
cheers,
Dave

 

[Mr._Fishy]

If it's best possible water quality you're going for, just do more or bigger water changes with tap water. I think this would result in better overall water quality than ro alone, but as I said, I don't know exactly what is in your water or how much.

 

[kniesh]

Hi Dave, no expert here but I have definately read on a few occassions that RO water should only really be used on marine and is effectively useless in freshwater. Think it has something to do with all the nutrients being taken out which means you have to add a few things back into it. If your water has been fine up untill now doing water changes I think I would carry on like that.

I'm not totally sure why its better for marine but you dont have to add anything to it for that.

 

[Mr._Fishy]

You always have to add back the trace minerals to ro water. It isn't "effectively useless in freshwater" either. Discus often greatly benefit from ro water.

And it is better for marine because it removes the things that either cause algae blooms or are harmful to corals. You do actually add back the trace minerals, it is in the salt mix.

 

[Gr44]

I have very, very hard water with a high pH and I'm starting to use a little RO water (nothing added) mixed with tap water to lower the hardness and pH down a little bit.

If you have pretty good water though, I wouldn't worry too much unless you're trying to get a certain pH or hardness level.