[Lady G]

I was wondering can you use distilled, spring or drinking water for top offs???

[Ross87]

The best water to fill your tank with is water from the foodstore that has the magic lable "Purifed Water by Distillation" or "Purified Water By Reverse Osmosis," clearly written on it. Water labled "Spring Water" could be out of the stores garden hose in the back of the building.

If you decide your going to use tap water (water from your faucet) your going to have to use chemicals to neutralize the chloromine in the water. Unlike Chlorine, Chloromine will not evaporate into the air, and it cannot be boiled out of the water. The chloromine in tap water will kill your fish tank.

Personally, I buy 1gal jugs of meijer water that is cleary labled "Distilled Water : Purified Water Processed by Distillation." At 59 cents a gallon, it's not too bad.


..... There's also Distillation processes you can buy for home use.

[Lady G]

Originally Posted by Ross87

The best water to fill your tank with is water from the foodstore that has the magic lable "Purifed Water by Distillation" or "Purified Water By Reverse Osmosis," clearly written on it. Water labled "Spring Water" could be out of the stores garden hose in the back of the building.

If you decide your going to use tap water (water from your faucet) your going to have to use chemicals to neutralize the chloromine in the water. Unlike Chlorine, Chloromine will not evaporate into the air, and it cannot be boiled out of the water. The chloromine in tap water will kill your fish tank.

Personally, I buy 1gal jugs of meijer water that is cleary labled "Distilled Water : Purified Water Processed by Distillation." At 59 cents a gallon, it's not too bad.


..... There's also Distillation processes you can buy for home use.

Thank you!! That is what I was wanting to know. I have been using tap (with conditioner) I do know about the chlorine and chloromine as I've kept FW tanks for a few years now...but I was concerned about the SW tank and using it plus I have heard and read that tap water actually can cause algae problems. So until I can get a unit for myself I was wondering what I should use instead.

Thanks again,
G

[Jeremy0322]

Your best bet is to bite the bullet on this one and go buy the stores distilled water. Depending on where you live there is the potential for stuff in the tap water that a water conditioner may not take out. And if you are like me and have well water than you really have a problem, the distilled water is almost a must at that point.

[NATIVEVAMAN]

Every time you use 200 gallons of distilled water you will have spent enough money to buy 1 r/o di unit.

[Jeremy0322]

I am planning on getting one, and with the price of distilled you can get an alright RO unit for like 160 bottles. I am planning on getting one eventually, but things like return pumps and new light bulbs have to come first. I can go buy water by the jug for a month or two, it wont kill me. Its either that or well water

[boba40]

my neighbor across the street has an ro system.we have well water and in the summer the wells do run low.in fact last year the same neighbor had a sprinkler on his lawn all day and he ran his well too low for the pump to pickup.granted within an hour and a half the well perked back up.my point is that for every gallon of ro water there is apparently 2.5-3 gallons wasted.unfortunatley some of us have to buy water.my tank has been up and running for a month now.i filled it with wal mart ro water.so far no problems.i dump a gallon a day in due to evaporation,but otherwise the store bought water is working fine

[NATIVEVAMAN]

Here is a link to a unit that will do what an ro/di does with no waste water and do it faster.The rub.....its 300$'s.If you have a well or pay a water bill it might be worth it.
Poly-Bio-Marine

[boba40]

thanks for the link,i will check it out.

[Lady G]

With the RO water....do you not need conditioner???

[Tonz of fun]

No you do not need any conditioners. Any unit you buy needs to have a DI on it though.

[Lady G]

Ok, thanks everyone!!