question about using RO water from grocery store

[fishfreek]

I have been using "R/O" water from wal-mart for about a year. The only thing i've noticed is that i get a bit of caynobacteria on my dsb occasionally. I test for phosphates and nitrates, they are zero. I don't over feed and my pc pulbs are fairly new (2 months old). Could silicates be the cause?? Thats about the only thing i don't test for.
Does anyone know if these culligan water machines produce true R/O water or is it ran through a quick carbon filter straight from the tap?
thanks,

 

[olsenjb]

I use Glacier water from the local Fred Meyer. The machine claims it is RO, carbon filtered and UV sterilized. I have a bit of a problem with cyano as well, but my tank it pretty new, and the cyano seems to be dying off. How old is your tank?

 

[gene11]

Ive been using r/o water from Cub Foods grocery store for about a year now and have had 1 cyano breakout but no other problems.

 

[steamboat1569]

cyanobacteria is caused by many thing. Culligan is reverse osmosis, all though I do not know if it is deionized. Silicates can cause it, but I need to know if your sure it is cyanobacteria. These bacteria are in the same family as diatoms, but not the same. Diatoms have the hard outer shell made of silicate, while cyanobacteria have an outer membrane simmilar to perimicium. Both do ingest silicates, but diatoms use it much more than cyanobacteria.
Other causes are overfeeding, overstocking, too much carbon dioxide, etc.
If you test for silicates, it will rule one more thing out of the circumstances.
Best of luck.

 

[fishfreek]

This tank has been up and running about 2-1/2 years so i figured it wasn't diatoms, but it still may be. The only additional info i can provide is that the tank isn't over crouded. As far as fish, I keep 2- false percs and a coral beauty. Also, the algae seems to go away toward night time and has some bubbles in it, but not as many as i have seen in past cayno outbreaks. Is this a dead give away of witch agae i have??
thanks,

 

[steamboat1569]

I do not believe that the length of time a tank has been set up will have anything to do with a diatom outbreak. 4 yrs. into the hobby, I had a major outbreak of diatoms. It happened shortly after recieving a cleanup crew of hermits and snails. I don't really know if I got the bloom as hitchikers with the cleanup crew or not. The tell tale sign of diatoms are a brownish red buildup. This is actualy the build up of dead skeletal remains of the diatoms as they build up on each other.
I used red slime remover, did water changes (I have my own RO/DI), and tested perameters. This seemed to stop the problem.