rain water

[Joker741]

Anyone ever use it in a tank? I live in a rainy area and it is supposed to be really clean. Any thoughts?

 

[partypalooza5]

It's (or was) raining a ton here.

I too would like to know if its OK to use atleast.

 

[richiestang_78]

To my knowledge the only thing bad about rainwater is the pollution that is in it. And no matter how far out of a city or how clean your air may appear to be theres probably contaminants in there that would be bad. I suppose you could run it through some sort of carbon filtering to purify it.

 

[Joker741]

I live on the Oregon Coast, less than 1/2 mile from the water and there is very little pollution here, but I am sure there is some. It has to be better than the chlorine and other things they put into tap water.

I have some buckets out, I will test them in the morning and see what the readings are.

 

[taylorodw]

I'm no expert on rainwater but I'd make sure to use a water treatment that removes heavy metals. In fact, I'd go with the reputable brand that claims to remove the most contaminants, just to be safe.

 

[mgamer20o0]

there should be fine though it should change your ph of the tank.

 

[bs6749]

Rainwater can be safely used, depending on how it's collected and what type of fish you are keeping. You wouldn't want to collect it as it runs off of your roof for example as it would collect all of the waste from the shingles. Also, if you are keeping African cichlids, which need an alkaline pH to thrive, you wouldn't want to use rainwater because it is generally acidic, what a pH of roughly 5.5 or so depending on your location.

 

[WhiteDevil]

Bad part now about collecting it is capturing it, Id jsut some wooden barrels to catch it or plastic jsut make sure they got a spigot on the bottom to get it out.


Id use it but the rain we get here is bad rain, middle of the country nothing but methane farms and industry between chicago and the pacific coast.

 

[Joker741]

Well, I set my 5 gallon plastic buckets out on my back deck last night and it didn't rain like it was supposed to. Oh well, I will try again tonight.

 

[CaptainAhab]

Rain water is anything but clean. Every pollutant in the air will be in there (man made and not). I don't care where you live. Filtered/distilled/ro-di/even muni is better. If you use it, I would recommend filtering it through carbon first. It will also be missing all the essentials so adding RO-rite or something similar will be needed.