Ro Water

[firefish10]

How and why do I make or get RO water?

 

[kpris]

You can buy it at your LFS (or various large supermarkets?), or get a RO unit that will filter tap water into RO water. It pretty much just gets rid of the larger molecules like carbonates, phosphates, nitrates etc... and gives you closer to pure water. The larger molecules are usually troublesome and will give you algal blooms and all sorts of other things.

The general consensus seems to be that if you're planning to get corals RO water is a must because they're so much more sensitive to these things, if it's just fish only it's debatable. Many people pull it off and are fine, depending on the quality of the tap water you get, others will say it's a must and wouldn't do it any other way. People around here tend to get a bit heated over the subject and have their own opinions on the matter XP

p.s. Just in case you don't know already and want to, RO stands for reverse osmosis. It kind of does what it sounds like. The water is forced the opposite direction to a semi-permeable membrane (think of a microscopic filter pad) in which the holes are so tiny that the larger molecules can't get through to the other side leaving you with very clean water which is always good for aquariums.