Are These Any Good For Clean Water?

[fall-apart-dave]

With my new tank, I am going to be spending a fortune on aquasafe or similar products. Will this do the same job with tap water?

http/www.aquatics-warehouse.co.uk/acatal...RATION_207.html

TAP WATER FILTER
This makes Deionized water ideal for reef and saltwater tanks
Makes perfect water for planted freshwater aquariums.

Comes complete ready to connect to any tap.

Includes tap water filter- Electro-right, 4 oz bottle - PH adjuster, 4 oz bottle - universal tap adaptor, - Kink free tubing - Resin Compression Spring.

 

[SJ2K]

Id say thats a little extreme, personly id just recommend a 500ml bottle of Seachems Prime Should last agies (super concentrated) and is perfect for all FW fish.

 

[fall-apart-dave]

With a 945 litre tank? Figured it would soon pay for its self...

 

[ibbledibble]

i suppose the question is how often do you have to replace the filter?
at £25 a time thats not cheap either. i buy the 2 litre nutrafin aqua plus for £11.99 it says enough for 14000L on your tank that would mean one total fill at the beginning, and a years worth of 25% water changes. quite often these filters are 6 months replacements so for a year with the filter you would pay £70.48 in the first year and £50.98 each year thereafter. as opposed to £11.99 per year with the aqua plus. if i'm wrong about the replacement time and its a two year life or more, then its a bit more cost effective, but still not cheaper than the aqua safe. i think the key is as sj2k said, make sure the conditioner you use is highly concentrated and buy in bulk!

 

[fall-apart-dave]

Thanks guys.

The thinking behind it was that I could have a constant supply of fresh water coming into the sump at all times, meaning that I never have to perform actual water changes... Changing that volume of water will be a pain in the hoope in my house given the layout! Whereas connecting the water mains wouldn't be a problem at all.

 

[Underwurlde]

You got a picture of that nigh-on-1000Litre, 1 tonne tank?!?!?

Love to see it..

Andy

 

[fall-apart-dave]

Thats the beast sat empty, waiting to be filled!

So, any thoughts then of using the filter for constant fresh water supply to eliminate the need for water changes?

 

[Underwurlde]

woa!

OK, the way I'd think of it is like this:

Some people religiously change over 50% of their bloody water once a week or more. IMO, complete waste of time and effort. I have a very small planted tank and I change 10-15% once a MONTH. My stats are fine. Always have been.

Now, you can go down this filtered DI / RO Water route if you want to, but it sounds like an utter pain in the ass to me, just to save a few £££ a year. Now, don't forget that you do NOT want PURE water in the tank, you'll want to beef it up with some hardness at the very least to stablize that pH etc, so you'll be endlessly fiddling with it and still end up having to 'condition' it if you like.

Some keepers do indeed use such filters to get pure water and then condition it to get an exact GH, KH and pH, but for this they are usually keeping specific species of fish that require exacting water conditions. This takes a dedicated fish keeper indeed!

I can honestly say that if you've got a 1000L tank that you want to set up and run in your house, there will be other far more expensive things to think about other than scrimping a few quid back on poxy conditioner. Hell, if you get pond conditioner it does exactly the same thing and costs less. Just shop around, buy in bulk (large bottles) and I think it will become very much affordable.

So... if it were me in your shoes, I honestly wouldn't bother with tap water filtering blah blah, but of course that's just my 2p's worth.

Andy

 

[fall-apart-dave]

It wasn't really a saving money excercise, it was more to make life easier for water changes etc. since drainage and fresh water supply both run under where we will put the tank, so no sweat to fit it.

I accept there will be some expensive things to consider, electricity, the filtration etc but given the price I got the tank for I really just couldn't say no!

Anyway, I shall forgo the filter for now and stick with filtration for the tank, lighting etc. and see how things go. I have got to build the steel frame to support the tank first before I do anything else!

 

[Squidman]

I think its a good idea except it would run up the water bill. It would be nice to not have to change the water weekly though!!!!!

 

[xxBarneyxx]

Yeah as Andy said this wouldnt be a soloution because you need to adjust RO/DI water to buffer the KH/GH and get the PH at the right level.

Have you heared of a "python" system before? Basically it is a hose with a couple of valves on that makes it really easy to fill and drain your tank. With this it should be really easy to do water changes even if you have to run the hose through a couple of rooms once a week.

 

[fall-apart-dave]

Never heard of the Python. I am not worried about water bills because I am on a fixed rate not a meter, and besides it wouldn't make any difference to the water I use because I'd still have the same amount of water being changed, it would just be gradual and constant rather than once a week and a lOT of water. And the water from my tank would be used on my herb garden and veggie patch anyway, as the water from my smaller tank gets used already!

Running hoses wouldn't be a problem, I'd just plumb it in under teh floor permanently because my water main and drainage runs under the tank anyway, and the bathroom is directly above the tank, so its not a problem. The problem is using buckets to change the water, because my house used to be a set of four flats before it was knocked into two large flats, and eventually the two flats were knocked through into our house. This gives us a big house with very large rooms but an unusual layout, and lugging bucket after bucket through the house just isn't really practical, weither is a hose. It would actualyl take less time to plumb it into our water main than a single water change would take for the large tank!

 

[mark7616]

woa!

OK, the way I'd think of it is like this:

Some people religiously change over 50% of their bloody water once a week or more. IMO, complete waste of time and effort. I have a very small planted tank and I change 10-15% once a MONTH. My stats are fine. Always have been.

Now, you can go down this filtered DI / RO Water route if you want to, but it sounds like an utter pain in the ass to me, just to save a few £££ a year. Now, don't forget that you do NOT want PURE water in the tank, you'll want to beef it up with some hardness at the very least to stablize that pH etc, so you'll be endlessly fiddling with it and still end up having to 'condition' it if you like.

Some keepers do indeed use such filters to get pure water and then condition it to get an exact GH, KH and pH, but for this they are usually keeping specific species of fish that require exacting water conditions. This takes a dedicated fish keeper indeed!

I can honestly say that if you've got a 1000L tank that you want to set up and run in your house, there will be other far more expensive things to think about other than scrimping a few quid back on poxy conditioner. Hell, if you get pond conditioner it does exactly the same thing and costs less. Just shop around, buy in bulk (large bottles) and I think it will become very much affordable.

So... if it were me in your shoes, I honestly wouldn't bother with tap water filtering blah blah, but of course that's just my 2p's worth.

Andy

If I was you I would completely ignor that useless post banging on about a small planted tank. You come leave my tank for 1 month with out changing the water and see what happens then. If you are keeping big tanks that usually equals big messy fish. I know you want to go down the cichlid route but I would do a bit of reasearch and look at some bigger better fish for that tank. Anyways you will need to do at least 1x 20% waterchange a week I do 1x 30% a week as my rays are very delicate. Now that device that you posted did look a bit over the top in what it does and pond dechlor is good for big tanks but I use one of these by evolution aqua so then I can just run the water straight from the hose and it dechlorinates on the way. Now this cost me £55 and does 33000 ukg whih works out considerably better value for money that pond dechlor aswell.

 

[mark7616]

Also mate that tank doesnt look like 96.7" x 30.5" x 20.7" to me as my tank is 96x32x31 and look at the difference.

 

[Davo86]

As for dechlorinating the tank water just use Tetra AquaSafe, it is reccomended for ponds but will do the same job in your tank,

The large bottle will treat just under 10,000 litres