Can you use Steam Distilled water?

[graemers]

Can you use bottled steam distilled water for water changes? can u use bottled :thinking: spring water?

 

[xdave]

You should aerate it for about 24 hours first.

 

[bang guy]

Distilled is fine.
Spring water is worse that most tap water.

 

[steve24]

my tank has been up and running for almost nine months now and all i have ever used is distilled water ...
steve

 

[triga22]

How much is that? Is that like the things u put on your faucet?

 

[larryndana]

What would be the difference in Distilled, ro, and rodi water?

 

[boozzbro]

distilled is evaporated and re condensed to form pure water. di water is demineralized and has low salt content dissolved in it.

 

[bang guy]

They are both about equally pure. It's a whole lot easier to have a home RO/DI unit than it is to have a distillery.

 

[darknes]

A water distiller just isn't cost effective, IMO. A typical home unit MIGHT give you 2 gallons of water an hour. Plus, the electrical cost of running the unit will probably cost more than the waste water you get out of an RO unit.

 

[renogaw]

Originally Posted by Darknes
A water distiller just isn't cost effective, IMO. A typical home unit MIGHT give you 2 gallons of water an hour. Plus, the electrical cost of running the unit will probably cost more than the waste water you get out of an RO unit.

horray for putting waste water back into your ground water table for wells

 

[boozzbro]

Originally Posted by Bang Guy
They are both about equally pure. It's a whole lot easier to have a home RO/DI unit than it is to have a distillery.
that is not true distilled water is much more pure than DI water.
Distilled water is what they use in electonics manufactuiring and DI water is used in the power industry for boiler feed water. the spec for boiler feed water is <0.1 micro mhos/ cm where as in the electronics industry its an order of magnitude less around .07 or so. Truely pure water has a conductivity of 0.055.

 

[bang guy]

I disagree with using the word "much". Distilled is insignificantly more pure than RO/DI for our purposes.
I stand by my statement "they are both about equally pure". Is there really a lot of difference between a tds of 0.055 and 0.070?

 

[boozzbro]

yes there is on however its in the ppb range not the ppm range. for aquarium uses its not almost nothing. but when you are talking about boilers that have water requirements on the order of 10,000 gpm and for electronic manufacturing requirements of 500- 600 gpm you are talking about millions of dollars worth of treatment to get water from 0.1 to 0.07

 

[larryndana]

I don't want to buy a RO/DI unit right now. I've got a number of other things on the list, its at the bottom right now.
Good information! I, as of now, buy ro/di water from lfs. But good to know distilled water would be my best option when buying at a store. :happyfish

 

[bang guy]

Well, there's a wrench in the mix there. A while back I tested various sources of water with my TDS meter. The results are here ---> Which Water for Your Reef?
As you can see, the Walmart Distilled water showed a TDS of 76. This is terrible.

 

[graemers]

Yeah thanks guys, I'm using distilled water from a store. I saw spring water beside it and was just womndering. I have no means of testing this distilled water, but I do know it tastes great!!

I'm gonna use that for now until I get a RODI unit in my house

 

[graemers]

Just tryin to reduce those friggin phosphates in my tank. What causes that weird smell in the tank? Should I aerate the tank?

 

[larryndana]

do you have any chemical filtration....i.e. protein skimmer or activated carbon.
These should help with some of the smell. Correct me if i'm wrong, anybody.