Ro Water

[gforce17]

Thanks so much Dr Rob. That's really helpful. Carry on bb!!!!!

 

[drobbyb]

Oh! My fault, I misread the original post. Sorry about that!

 

[boebrummie]

right i got my kh/gh tester and these are the readings.

tank - gh 9 dkh - 161.1 ppm
kh 4 dkh - 71 ppm

tap - gh 6 dkh - 107.4 ppm
kh 3 dkh - 53.7 ppm

hma - gh 5 dkh - 89.5 ppm
kh 4 dkh - 71.6 ppm

waste water - gh 6 dkh - 107.4 ppm
kh 3 dkh - 53.7 ppm

but is it normal for hma to be higher kh than tap water

 

[OldMan47]

In use RO in one of my tanks but need to mix it with tap water so that it has enough minerals for fish health. My local tap water is really too hard for things like cories so I run a 50/50 mix of tap and RO in their tank. What it comes down to is really simple. There are almost no fish that can live for long in pure water, like RO water is. That means that in order to use it you must amend it. I do that by mixing it back in with tap water but many people use chemical additives to add the minerals instead. Since what I am trying to do is reduce, not eliminate, the mineral content, I just figure out a mix that will give me the desired results. In my case I got lucky and a 50/50 mix works out to only about 120 ppm of TDS and a hardness of around 6 degrees. That suits things like cories quite nicely.

 

[TwoTankAmin]

DI stand for deionization. I mentioned the DI part as it is part of my system. It basically gets one down those last few ppm to the 0 range. I felt it would be inappropriate to stated I had an RO unit only as that would have been untrue.

 

[OldMan47]

I have an RO only arrangement TTA. After all, who needs that last bit when you are going to turn right around and mix it with tap water or add back something like RO Right.

 

[DrRob]

right i got my kh/gh tester and these are the readings.

tank - gh 9 dkh - 161.1 ppm
kh 4 dkh - 71 ppm

tap - gh 6 dkh - 107.4 ppm
kh 3 dkh - 53.7 ppm

hma - gh 5 dkh - 89.5 ppm
kh 4 dkh - 71.6 ppm

waste water - gh 6 dkh - 107.4 ppm
kh 3 dkh - 53.7 ppm

but is it normal for hma to be higher kh than tap water

We've got some way off the original question now. With something that looks like it's been useful to people.

However, to try to get back to BoeBrummie. No, it's not normal for HMA to be higher kh than tap. It shouldn't do all that much to the hardness at all. Are you sure everything's piped in right, as you have exactly the same numbers for waste and tap?

Overall, I would say, if that's your tap water, then you're probably just about fine with using that for most of the fish you have, but I can see the logic of using the HMA for the wild caught and sensitive species.

 

[boebrummie]

yeh soz was meant to correct the hma its the same has the tap water params

 

[DrRob]

So your HMA, tap and waste are all the same numbers?

Are you sure your RO is plumbed in correctly?

Despite that, I suspect you'd be fine with the HMA water.

 

[boebrummie]

no sorry they wasnt the same has tap. hma was gh 5 kh 2/3