My RO Water isn't available for awhile

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An t-iasg

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Aug 9, 2003
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Criders Corners, PA
Hi everyone,
I mix RO water with my tap water -- about half and half. I get the water from a machine in the grocery store. The machine is gone, and the store is remodeling. They said it may be 3 weeks before it comes back.

In the meantime, I've tested the bottled spring water that we get to drink.
Here are the parameters, of the bottled water and the RO water:

Bottled water: pH 6.6, KH 2, GH 3
RO water: pH 6.2, KH 1, GH 1

Would you use the bottled water, mixed with tap, for water changes? Is the difference too significant? Keep in mind that it could be 3 weeks or more until the RO machine is back up, and all the RO water in the tanks would be long gone. The tanks are 5.5 gallons. Also, I'd have to adjust my ratio and use maybe 3/4 bottled water to 1/4 tap to get the pH and hardnesses to better match what's in the tank now.

I could drive about 50 minutes one way, to the hatchery where I got the bettas, to get some of their RO water. That's the only other source of RO water I know of.

Would you feel comfortable using the bottled water, or would you go get the RO water?
 
Because you are using it to "cut" the tap water parameters, I would recommend buying bottles of distilled water. I actually used distilled in my tank for a while before switching to ro. It costs about twice what the machine would, about 60 cents per gallon instead of 30, but it's still less expensive than bottled drinking water. However, with tanks that small cost probably isn't an issue. RO and distilled water is pure water, "drinking" water usually has minerals added or kept in. ( :lol: , you could travel to where I work and get HWFI water, which is as pure as it gets)

The best thing to do regardless of what water you decide to use is to get the parameters of your tank water, and then just make sure your parameters match.
 
isnt distilled water bad?? id suggest the drinking water. its about the same price.

here walmart, cubs etc has the machines. err yeah its called drinking water and it comes in those gallon containers.

im not 100% sure about the distilled water being bad but i heard it somewhere
 
Thanks, Shawmutt -- I do have some distilled water. I'll mix it up with tap and test it before I decide what to do. I know distilled water alone isn't good, but mixed with tap would be ok. You're right; cost isn't an issue for small tanks. I just don't want my fish to get sick because of different water. Everything has been going great in the tanks so far!

What is HWFI water? I never heard of it! (or I don't recognize the acronym). I thought RO/DI was as pure as it got!
 
isnt distilled water bad??

Distilled water and ro water is the same--pure water with no conductivity.

Hot Water For Injection--it's used in my lab. It's ro/di water with 0 tds, sterilized and kept at 80 degrees celcius to keep any bacteria from growing.
 
I drove to the hatchery yesterday. I haven't been there for awhile, I needed some other things, and it was a nice day for a drive! I got 8 gallons of RO water (and he didn't charge me for that! :D )

If it was one time, I think distilled would be fine. It's just that the tanks are small, and 3-4 weeks of distilled + tap changes would basically change the makeup of the whole tank. Then I'd be changing back to the RO and tap mix for the next 3-4 weeks. I thought that was a long time for the bettas to be in these differing parameters. So, I got the RO water, a bulb for my light strip, some frozen daphnia, a new chunk of java moss, and some ghost shrimp (which I haven't been able to find all day today :? ) So it was a good trip!

Shawmutt, how are the biology classes going? I saw some cichlids at the hatchery. I'm getting tempted! They were pretty small. I think they were juvies, but the owner said they won't get real big. They weren't peacock blues, but they were dark blue and light blue striped. If I had a tank of them I wouldn't have to worry about my tap water! How aggressive are those ones?
 
Ok, so here's another question. I'm looking for some better water for my rams. I can use the distilled for the time being, but down the road....Should I get RO, or diatom for filtration?
 
A diatom filter won't do anything but filter your water down to 1 micron and polish it. In the process it will remove pathogens but not disolved solids.

Before anyone could give you a meaningful and intelligent answer to your question, we'd need to know the pH, kH, and gH of your tap water.
 
Just out of curiosity. Whats your tap water para's? If they are'nt to awful bad. Why not slowly acclimate the betta's to your tap water?
 
My tap water parameters are awfully bad :lol: The pH is 8.0-8.2. With my tap and RO mix, the pH is 7.4-7.6. I'm going to keep using the RO water in my betta tanks. It's not an expense or effort for two 5 gallon tanks, and the bettas and the plants are doing well. If I start a bigger tank, I'll probably want to get a fish that will like the high pH, like the cichlids. Hopefully with fish like that I won't have to alter the water as much as I do the betta's water.

PS. An update: (this is an old topic, lol) The RO machine is back at the grocery store, my ghost shrimp that I got at the hatchery that day died :( and the cichlids that I like are Pseudotropheus demasoni.
 
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