No More Ro Water Availabe

[RENDOG]

I just moved and didnt find a LFS that I would trust to purchase water from. What are my alternatives, purified or distilled water from supermarkets?? I have PRIME but thats about it as far as chemicals are concerned. I've had my tank for 6 months (planted 20 gallon with 5 neons, 3 glow-lite danios, 3 guppy's, 6 vietnamese cardinal minnows and 2 ottos) and whenever I did a water change they would test my water and everything checked out perfect. I've used their RO water from the start and never had any problems (only one death in 6 months and plants are thriving with homemade CO2). Any suggestions on what type of water and which chemicals to add would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

 

[kribensis12]

Distilled is better in my opinnion.

 

[Dorkhedeos]

umm, i dont think pure water like distilled and ro water is good for the health of the fish in the long run and its expensive. regular water has minerals and stuff in it that fish need and it keeps fish healthy. i forget what exactly was in the water, but im pretty sure it was essential for fish. i would suggest just using regular treated tap water

 

[thegnu]

unless your tap water is crap (as mine is) your fish do not need RO water. if you feel you must keep using it, buy your own RO unit. their not that expensive. i bought mine here in the UK and the membrane they use actually comes from America

 

[Jules H-T]

Careful, AFAIAA, RO does not remove Chloramines.

 

[andywg]

RO removes pretty much everything leaving somewhere in the region of 99-99.9% pure water. In a well set up system, this will include chloramine.

Randy Holmes-Farley describes the effects of chloramine and how it can be removed quite well in this article.

 

[Miss Wiggle]

if your unsure of lfs's in your area try pming SkiFletch. he's in florida too so can maybe help you out................ forgive my ignorance of geography if you're several hrs away from each other, not sure how big a state it is!

 

[Jules H-T]

Interesting article Andy. What I note, is that it seems to be the activated carbon doing the removal not the RO membrane. Advice that RO removes chloramines should come on the proviso that the RO system has fresh activated carbon as a part of the system. Not using RO water or an RO system, I wasn't aware that activated carbon was involved in "most" RO systems, fair enough.

This has been discussed in more depth in this thread, which is possibly worthy of a read. I posted some articles that you might find interesting Andy.

 

[DarkSoul]

in all the money you have spent on water, you probably could have spent the $150 on the Aqua Safe 6 stage RO+DI filter.

comes complete with everything you need (mostly) and for a hell of a price... just buy one.

look on ebay for "The Aqua Safe Pure Water Shop"

 

[andywg]

Interesting article Andy. What I note, is that it seems to be the activated carbon doing the removal not the RO membrane. Advice that RO removes chloramines should come on the proviso that the RO system has fresh activated carbon as a part of the system. Not using RO water or an RO system, I wasn't aware that activated carbon was involved in "most" RO systems, fair enough.

This has been discussed in more depth in this thread, which is possibly worthy of a read. I posted some articles that you might find interesting Andy.

So what you are saying is that we should point out that only RO units that are maintained and set up properly will remove chloramines? Somewhat redundant n'est pas? Surely no one can expect something to fulfil its goals if it isn't set up correctly and maintained at the requisite intervals?

None of the articles posted in the previous thread worked, except the one to UKdiscus which is very similar to Randy's work but without the practical experiment results to back up what is said.

 

[Jules H-T]

Interesting article Andy. What I note, is that it seems to be the activated carbon doing the removal not the RO membrane. Advice that RO removes chloramines should come on the proviso that the RO system has fresh activated carbon as a part of the system. Not using RO water or an RO system, I wasn't aware that activated carbon was involved in "most" RO systems, fair enough.

This has been discussed in more depth in this thread, which is possibly worthy of a read. I posted some articles that you might find interesting Andy.

So what you are saying is that we should point out that only RO units that are maintained and set up properly will remove chloramines? Somewhat redundant n'est pas? Surely no one can expect something to fulfil its goals if it isn't set up correctly and maintained at the requisite intervals?

None of the articles posted in the previous thread worked, except the one to UKdiscus which is very similar to Randy's work but without the practical experiment results to back up what is said.

Right, I didn't check the links were still active.

The point is this Andy- The process of reverse osmosis does not remove monochloramine in any great proportions.

The reverse osmosis system used by Randy just so happened to contain an activated carbon element. Not all do as I understand it.

So it it false to claim that RO removes chloramines, it is true to say that exposure to activated carbon does. The woods have got in the way of the trees in Randy's work and in your own assertion.

 

[andywg]

The point is this Andy- The process of reverse osmosis does not remove monochloramine in any great proportions.

The reverse osmosis system used by Randy just so happened to contain an activated carbon element. Not all do as I understand it.

So it it false to claim that RO removes chloramines, it is true to say that exposure to activated carbon does. The woods have got in the way of the trees in Randy's work and in your own assertion.

I don't know of any RO units that do not contain activated carbon. Certainly all the ones offered to me when I was making a purchase came with them.

Strangely enough, in Randy's experiments the carbon took out a lot, but not all the chloramine (it was present in the membrane waste water) but the RO membranes took out all the carbon that was missed by the carbon, so your assertion that it is very poor seems to be wide of the truth.

 

[Jules H-T]

Indeed, I had spotted that. I've not had time to go and refind the links, but in the other thread, I posted extracts from what seemed to be a much more scientific experiment involving the removal of Chloramines by RO membranes (looking at different types of membranes and concentrations of Chloramine) and it did contradicted Randy's results.

The only comon ground seemed to be the activated carbon.

Fair enough if activated carbon features in all RO systems, I am not an exper on them. They also come as inserts to filters, so whether the same job could be achieved I do not know.

 

[Rez]

if your unsure of lfs's in your area try pming SkiFletch. he's in florida too so can maybe help you out................ forgive my ignorance of geography if you're several hrs away from each other, not sure how big a state it is!

The Island of Great Britain is 216,777 sq Km
Florida is 140,256 sq Km

so Florida is pretty big

 

[Miss Wiggle]

if your unsure of lfs's in your area try pming SkiFletch. he's in florida too so can maybe help you out................ forgive my ignorance of geography if you're several hrs away from each other, not sure how big a state it is!

The Island of Great Britain is 216,777 sq Km
Florida is 140,256 sq Km

so Florida is pretty big

ha ha fair enough then, i'll shut up