Any Body Use Distilled Water In Their Aquariums?

FishForums.net Pet of the Month
🐶 POTM Poll is Open! 🦎 Click here to Vote! 🐰

utahfish

Fish Herder
Joined
May 5, 2004
Messages
1,503
Reaction score
1,402
i use distilled water in my tanks. it keeps my ph nuetral which is good and the lack of any phosphates or metals or chemicals keeps algae under control. i still add stress coat when i do water changes because it says it coats fishs slimecoats. i also add iron and trace mix and have DIY co2 supplementation. does anybody have any experiences using distilled water or know anything about it and what is it's pro and cons. thanx.

little info on my tank becasue it always seems people ask tank dimensions to reply to ?'s

29 gallon. flourite and tahitian moon sand substrate. planted amazon swords and indica rotolla,drift wood
8 neons,4 black neon,4 glo lite 3 red eyes 1 otto 2 dwarf cories, 1 rubbernosed plec and 6 dwarf frogs.

water parameters-ph 6.8 kh 60 gh 40
 
well, it gets kinda expensive. unless you have a saltwater tank, you dont really need ro or distilled water. i think tap water that is treated is better than ro or distilled for freshwater fish because its easier and you dont need to add the other crap in the water to keep your fish healthy
 
Trace amounts of ions are necessary for the fish to do well, so dechlorinated tap water or spring water would probably be better options. Unfortunately, all I can really say is that provided you have the money, knowhow and don't mess up when adding those chemicals, it seems like a good setup. *shrugs*
 
i use distilled water in my tanks. it keeps my ph nuetral which is good and the lack of any phosphates or metals or chemicals keeps algae under control. i still add stress coat when i do water changes because it says it coats fishs slimecoats. i also add iron and trace mix and have DIY co2 supplementation. does anybody have any experiences using distilled water or know anything about it and what is it's pro and cons. thanx.

little info on my tank becasue it always seems people ask tank dimensions to reply to ?'s

29 gallon. flourite and tahitian moon sand substrate. planted amazon swords and indica rotolla,drift wood
8 neons,4 black neon,4 glo lite 3 red eyes 1 otto 2 dwarf cories, 1 rubbernosed plec and 6 dwarf frogs.

water parameters-ph 6.8 kh 60 gh 40

I use it in my freshwater tank purely because the water where I am is very hard and has a lot of nitrate in it.
The fish I keep are also mainly soft acidic fish so I control how my water is rather than fighting a loosing battle trying to lower hardness and pH levels.
 
Using distilled water in your FW aquarium is fine as long as you are doing what you are doing...replenishing necessary minerals that fish need to keep in good health. Advantages of using distilled over tap water are absence of nitrates, phosphates and heavy metals.

Distilled water, as many know, is water that is boiled off as steam, condensed and recollected. Steam does not carry minerals with it so, minerals and contaminants are left behind. The only way to get into trouble is if the source of distillation is using poor equipment or copper pipes. Copper pipes can leach copper into the water and kill invertebrates and many fish. Fortunately, modern steam distillation does not use copper.

One way to check and see if your distilled water source is 'cool' is to measure the TDS, or, total dissolved solids. It is a small battery run meter that is very inexpensive and is commonly used with our RO/DI filters to check for purity and also when the RO membrane is failing (TDS will climb). Distilled water should have a TDS near 0.

HTH. SH
 
Distilled has 0 kh, using 0 kh water with co2 addition is likely to result in a pH crash.
 
..hence, why one replenishes the distilled water or 'reclaims it' prior to adding it to the tank. Distilled, as above, if fine if reclaimed prior to use. SH
 
..hence, why one replenishes the distilled water or 'reclaims it' prior to adding it to the tank. Distilled, as above, if fine if reclaimed prior to use. SH
what do you mean by "reclaiming the water"? i do weekly water changes. i change out five gallons of distilled water every saturday.
 
He means replaced the "good" impurities in the water bad dosing with trace elements.

Personally my water is so full of crap I use a 50/50 mix of RO and tap water in my FW tank. Would go 100% RO but a 50% weekly water change with my RO unit would be very tricky as it's so slow.

Might be time to invest in a better one tbh.
 
Since my tap is hard I mix it 2 to 1 with RO to soften it up a bit and keep a lower ph. So far (3 months) all has been fine....I check ph every week and don't have any swings.
 
All good posts. In other words, distilled is pure water. Fish absorb necessary minerals from water as we would when we drink water. Reclaiming it provides some buffering capacity to prevent pH swings. SH
 

Most reactions

trending

Staff online

Back
Top