R/O water
- Thread starter stratton
- Start date
I would say yes depending on what % you are changing and if you are trying to reduce anything.
Water has more to it than just H2O. What you add also depends on what you want your final water chemistry to be. For instance, hard water with a high pH will gradually drop in both hardness and buffering capicity if you continually take out old water and replace it with soft R/O water. You need to condition your new water with minerals to bring up your hardness before adding. match your pH and hardness to your existing tank and then add it. Just plain R/O water has no buffering capacity and will make for a more unstable enviroment.
For soft water tanks its a good start but even soft water has some mineral in it but just a lot less. matching your current tank waters parameters for stability reasons is always a good idea.
Just some food for thought and to get this discussion started.
Jeff
Water has more to it than just H2O. What you add also depends on what you want your final water chemistry to be. For instance, hard water with a high pH will gradually drop in both hardness and buffering capicity if you continually take out old water and replace it with soft R/O water. You need to condition your new water with minerals to bring up your hardness before adding. match your pH and hardness to your existing tank and then add it. Just plain R/O water has no buffering capacity and will make for a more unstable enviroment.
For soft water tanks its a good start but even soft water has some mineral in it but just a lot less. matching your current tank waters parameters for stability reasons is always a good idea.
Just some food for thought and to get this discussion started.
Jeff
in a nutshell ro water should not be used in freshwater tanks it is only suitable for saltwater applications it could take a while to list the trace elements removed and needed for your freshwater system and only an advanced aquarist would have the right equipment to maintain an ro freshwater tank
Howdy,
R/O water is usually used cut with tap water: If you have a softwater tank but hard tap water you mix them to reach your desired hardness. Therefore, I disagree with fishnutham. R/O water has its rightful place in freshwater. Its use is pretty straight forward, you need a test kit for hardness (kH, dH) and if you're fancy also a reader for conductivity.
HarleyK
R/O water is usually used cut with tap water: If you have a softwater tank but hard tap water you mix them to reach your desired hardness. Therefore, I disagree with fishnutham. R/O water has its rightful place in freshwater. Its use is pretty straight forward, you need a test kit for hardness (kH, dH) and if you're fancy also a reader for conductivity.
HarleyK
Thanks for the insight. I have been keeping a couple saltwater tanks for a while and am just getting back into freshwater. It is amazing all of the things I have forgotten or didn't know about freshwater!!! Kind of embarrassing really!!!
HarleyK said:
I agree 100% harleyk but from the origanal post I have to assume he was asking about adding 100% ro water not looking for a mix answer i don't even mix mine My ro unit is collecting dust i use peat and wood to drop my water hardness and sometimes waters of the world just find it really more work then its worth to find a good mix
RO is more trouble than it's worth unless you have exceptionally hard water and you are trying to breed fish that require soft water like discus or killifish. i.e. the president of the local killifish club uses RO because his tapwater is very hard (along with a ph >10) and he breeds a lot of wild, softwater killies.
Ro water is a great idea for both freshwater & saltwater. It removes bacically everything from your water so you have a "clean slate" to start with. It should not be used "straight" in most cases.
For fresh water useage you MUST add the correct amount of trace elements back to the ro water for the type of enviroment the water is going to be used in. For example, a tanginician cichlid type aquarium would need buffers such as calcium carbonate to make the water hard with a higher ph value (that was an over simplfied example) Fortunetly there are products available to add to ro water for desired conditions that are very easy to use. Kent marine for example has products made to add to ro water. Some may have the opinion that this is too much hassel to go thru but it does produce better results especially on planted aquariums. Mixing tap water with ro water is an acceptable method as well but there is no accurate formula to determine how much "tap" is added to "ro" to achieve "X" conditions. I think the best method with this is trial and error with a conductivity meter untill you have met the conditions you wanted. (sound hard but is really easy) A person who owns a freshwater aquarium could really benifit from owning a conductivity meter, it's a great tool for accuratly determining water conditionds / quality.
RO water is great for topping off aquariums from evaporation.
For salt water use, just add your synthetic salt mixture to the ro water and your ready to go.
THis is a very basic overview but for the person who wants the best water, this is a good way to go.
For fresh water useage you MUST add the correct amount of trace elements back to the ro water for the type of enviroment the water is going to be used in. For example, a tanginician cichlid type aquarium would need buffers such as calcium carbonate to make the water hard with a higher ph value (that was an over simplfied example) Fortunetly there are products available to add to ro water for desired conditions that are very easy to use. Kent marine for example has products made to add to ro water. Some may have the opinion that this is too much hassel to go thru but it does produce better results especially on planted aquariums. Mixing tap water with ro water is an acceptable method as well but there is no accurate formula to determine how much "tap" is added to "ro" to achieve "X" conditions. I think the best method with this is trial and error with a conductivity meter untill you have met the conditions you wanted. (sound hard but is really easy) A person who owns a freshwater aquarium could really benifit from owning a conductivity meter, it's a great tool for accuratly determining water conditionds / quality.
RO water is great for topping off aquariums from evaporation.
For salt water use, just add your synthetic salt mixture to the ro water and your ready to go.
THis is a very basic overview but for the person who wants the best water, this is a good way to go.