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I was just wondering if you could use store bought reverse ozmosis water (ex. Aquafina) to do water changes? If so do I need to add any conditioner or anything like that?
PR says it has an average TDS of 4.. Better than tap, not as good as RO/DI. No conditioner should be need though the PR doesn't mention chloramines. For safety I would.
An RO/DI might be more cost effective in the long run
yes Aquafina is fine, add conditioner as a safety precaution.
PR: Public Relations (statements from the company)
TDS : Total Dissolved Solids
RO/DI: Reverse Osmosis/De-ionization (filtering technique). Filter can be purchased to make 0 TDS (see above) water. Pure water.. H2O
you can buy Culligan RO water from most wal-mart stores for 37 cents/gallon. Get some of those orange Home Depot buckets & lids & fill them for less than $2 each. HD buckets are HDPE, same as water jugs for camping, so they're fine, I just rinse, wipe down with vinegar, rinse a couple more times, and they're good to go.
This is where I got mine. You can't beat the price. I got 150 GPD dual DI for $114 shipped. Works great. I added a couple shutoff valves and linked it with our home system so when I'm not filling trash cans it speeds up the refill on the house side.