water related questions

[jpcampbell123]

has anyone on here used the ro water from wal mart? just curious how it went and also has anyone used any of brands of ro water like cave spring.
i found two different spots where i can collect water from natural springs way that come up from way down in the ground. one of them has a tds reading of 94. is this good or bad?
also one of them has a cave and the water comes out of the cave. people have been getting drinking water from the cave location for hundreds of years.
they also said around 250k gallons of water flows out of it daily.

jc

 

[boldtogether]

A water source with a TDS under 100 isn't unusual but I wouldn't drink water with a TDS of more than 50ppm. That being said, TDS could be anything from salts, minerals, metal, cations(positively charged ions) and anions(negatively charged ions). Don't forgrt about the TSS(total suspended solids) as well. Some TDS are organic and harmless, while others are harmful like sewage run off and industrial like pesticides.
Municiple water is supposed to be monitored for TDS that is harmful to us, and for the most part is safe to drink right from the tap. An artisan source such as a well or spring more often than not, isn't monitored or treated for things that could kill you quickly or slowly.
Anyway, I wouldn't worry to much about using water from your source, but I would still condition it as if it were tap water.

 

[duanes]

Straight RO water is not good for most fish, most fish come from water with some mineral content and RO is devoid of it, and can upset a fishes ability to osmoregulate, some more than others. It can kill rift lake cichlids, although a 50% tap 50% RO mix might be OK for some Amazon soft water species.

 

[jpcampbell123]

i had two different ro brands one of them worked slow but it filled it up in a little over a day. i always add some ro right back to the water. i just find it strange when i called the city where the cave is to see what kinds of minerals have been found in the water and they told me the water has never been tested and here are all of these folks drinking water that they have no idea whats in it. someone must have tested the tds and posted it on line but far as the minerals it has not been tested.