When we bought our house last year, our water test from our revealed that are nitrates were 13 ppm straight from the tap.
Just started cycling my 29 gallon. When I got the ammonia and, I tested the ammonia, and decided to go ahead and test everything else as well.
The pH of my water straight from the tap runs in the mid 6s, the RO water seems to run a couple tenths lower than straight up water.
We do have a neutralizer (our well water is naturally much more acid, about 5.9) but no water softener.
We only have the kitchen sink three stage RO system, not a "whole house" system.
I understand pH will increase some as the CO2 escapes over time, but my pH was 8.4 in my tank!!!! My tank was filled from "non RO" water, primarily because it would take me about four days to get enough water out of that system to fill a 29 gallon.
Yet for some reason, the tank nitrates test around 40-80 ppm and the RO water itself is around 10 ppm. This was at the beginning of cycling.
Seems that either the test is inaccurate, or my nitrates spiked in less than one year in my ground water, and the RO system also isn't working very well.
Could the API tests be wrong?
Should I go through the hassle of trying to use RO water to fill my tank?
If I do that, do you have suggestions for how to store the water? Will it get stagnant over time sitting in a bucket or barrel?
Just started cycling my 29 gallon. When I got the ammonia and, I tested the ammonia, and decided to go ahead and test everything else as well.
The pH of my water straight from the tap runs in the mid 6s, the RO water seems to run a couple tenths lower than straight up water.
We do have a neutralizer (our well water is naturally much more acid, about 5.9) but no water softener.
We only have the kitchen sink three stage RO system, not a "whole house" system.
I understand pH will increase some as the CO2 escapes over time, but my pH was 8.4 in my tank!!!! My tank was filled from "non RO" water, primarily because it would take me about four days to get enough water out of that system to fill a 29 gallon.
Yet for some reason, the tank nitrates test around 40-80 ppm and the RO water itself is around 10 ppm. This was at the beginning of cycling.
Seems that either the test is inaccurate, or my nitrates spiked in less than one year in my ground water, and the RO system also isn't working very well.
Could the API tests be wrong?
Should I go through the hassle of trying to use RO water to fill my tank?
If I do that, do you have suggestions for how to store the water? Will it get stagnant over time sitting in a bucket or barrel?