Brita Filters?

[drkegel]

OK, this might be a stupid question, but something that I recently thought about when pouring a glass of water out of my brita...
How effective would it be to use a Brita when doing top off water. Seems to me it would be a lot cheaper, just wondering how good it is? Aguy could easily modify the pitcher to be plumbed in-line to a top-off system.
Anyone tried it? Found any research done on it?

 

[underthesea]

If it work let us all know. But are you sure it would be cheaper in the long run. With all my tanks I have to top off about ten gallons every day to two day you can not get alot of water filtered through those cartridges before changing them can you?

 

[drkegel]

The filter is rated for 70 gallons, or 2 months, whichever comes first. I think the filter is like $4, if you buy them in bulk. So it ends up being about 17 cents a gallon. Personally, since my tap water isn't really that bad at all, I get much more than 70 gallons (I get about 100 gallons) through one before i need to change it, so there is some variance to it. I can tell when the filter is going bad from the taste of the water. I grew up with very pure water, so when I moved to the "big city", the water almost made me sick to drink it, even though it was tested to be really not bad at all. The Brita is pretty good little rig for drinking water, but not sure how effective it is for aquarium use.

 

[broomer5]

Home water filtration systems must meet certain criteria in order to claim true "reductions" in water contaminents.
Here's some information that you may find helpful.
It's pretty good information about NSF/ANSI drinking water standards.
IMO - Using a Britta type drinking water filter is better than no filtration at all. It all depends on the contaminent levels in your tap water source. You must recognize two things.
Removal vs. Reduction
RO/DI units "remove" up to 99.9% of various water contaminents depending upon the quality of the unit.
Home drinking water units "reduce" some of these same contaminents - but rarely to the degree of an RO or RO/DI unit, or RO/DI processed water will.
<a href="http://www.nsf.org/consumer/consumer_dwtucontaminant.html" target="_blank">http://www.nsf.org/consumer/consumer_dwtucontaminant.html</a>
<a href="http://www.nsf.org/consumer/consumer_dwtucontaminant.html" target="_blank">http://www.nsf.org/consumer/consumer_dwtucontaminant.html</a>
<a href="http://www.nsf.org/Certified/DWTU/Listings.asp?Company=06710&Standard=042" target="_blank">http://www.nsf.org/Certified/DWTU/Listings.asp?Company=06710&Standard=042</a>

 

[tru conch]

i have been using a brita filter to top off my 29 with pretty good results. i know its not as good as a RO unit, but it is better than nothing. it just takes some time to let the water filter through the pitcher.

 

[cruises8]

All I know is that whenever I tried to use brita water to top-off my tank, the next few days I would get a HUGE diatom bloom! The brita filters must not remove silica!

 

[broomer5]

My opinion - you could make a DIY activated carbon filter with a tall packed column of carbon, and slowly run water through it with better results compared to using a Britta cartridge.