Ro Water

[Daveo026]

Hi all I'm getting an ro unit in a week and was wondering how much ro water with tap water I need to mix also have live plants that I don't want to die or if its better to just use ro water and mix some things back into it (would need to be told what the water will need back in) water in my area is bad nitrates are over 50 reason I'm going to use ro water

 

[Livewire88]

It all depends on what fish you are looking to keep?

If nothing to fragile/demanding just go with a 50/50 mix of RO and tap water and your plants should do fine.

 

[Daveo026]

I have neons that r most likely my weakest fish

 

[DrRob]

Neon's will be happy in a much thinner mix than 50:50, so long as it doesn't move too fast.
 
The plants should be fine so long as there are fertilisers added with trace involved (although some of the hard water preferring plants will struggle.
 
As livewire has said, it depends on a lot and what you're trying to achieve with the RO in the first place. I use it partly as the tap water is quite variable, partly because of the 2 ppm ammonia and partly because you need to pretty much sieve limescale out of the water coming out of the tap here.

 

[CezzaXV]

I probably wouldn't even bother with RO if neons are your weakest fish. Most fish are much more resistant to nitrates than a lot of people will tell you. You'd need to have nitrates in the hundreds before most fish would start being affected.

So I guess the answer is as much or as little as you want.

However, if it is just the nitrates that are bothering you and you really want to do something about it, have you considered getting a nitrate reactor instead? They tend to be used in marine tanks more than freshwater, but it might be useful to have one in your situation.

 

[Daveo026]

I've looked at reactors but the research I did on them says there hit and miss if they work or not and would like shrimp altho not sure the breed yet the water here also is very hard and when I get neons even doing my best to get them used to my water I normally lose around 50% and some die over the next few weeks altho touch wood I havent lost any of my 10 yet