What kind of water

[jpa0741]

Hi, everyone

I am setting up a 92 gal. corner tank and have read you should use r/o water. I don't have nowhere close to get any. Do you think distilled will be o.k. some say there maybe copper in it, others say it is not a problem. How do you know if they use copper plumbing from a store like meijer or walmart. The other questions is should I mix it before I put it in the tank.

Thanks for the help, Jeff

 

[vsnsofadrgn]

ive used the distilled form walmart with no problems. are you just setting up? if so then you can go ahead and mix in tank, otherwise youll wnat to mix in a seperate container, with a powerhead to to mix the salt for at least 24 hours. i just got an ro/di unit off ebay for 110 shipped, so its worth it in the long run to purchase that. it makes it soooo much easier on the water changes and top-offs.

 

[seaham358]

look into a RO/DI unit not just RO.. it will save you money over the long run if you buy on instead of buying water every week. Cutting corners on water quality will only cost you ore in the long run.

 

[tecwzrd]

You can get away with using distilled water most of the time without worrying too much about copper or no3/po4 contamination from most sources. Distilled water is usually used by people with smaller tanks ie <30 gal due to the small water changes they have to perform. For anything larger then 30 gal an ro\di unit is the only way to go. ro units only can still produce trace amounts of po4 which can lead to algae breakouts which is why you want to get an ro\di unit which is usually only about $20-$40 more then a ro unit.

I lot of people get them from ebay for around $100. Below are the 3 most popular sites:

Filter-Direct-store (seems to be most popular on this site)
The-Aqua-Safe-Pure-Water-Shop
ROfilterDepot

Also airwaterice.com is a good place if you don’t want to deal with ebay.

I would get a unit that comes with a storage container personally.