R/O water from LFS or Distilled from Grocery store?

[crzyfshygy]

Which one is better. I do not have access to R/O DI but do have to R/O and distilled. Which one is better for the tank. I heard distilled is the purest there is?

 

[bluelagoon]

use is r/o water, its better than distilled. if the grocery store has a water machine like most do, that is r/o water.

 

[crzyfshygy]

Thanks......well if the filters are not being changed in my LFS R/O machine would distilled be better than?

 

[reefnut]

I would test them both and go with the cleaner of the two.

 

[crzyfshygy]

Cool....what do i test them for? Nitrates and Phosphates?

 

[reefnut]

Yep, and ammonia, nitrites, and anything else you can.

 

[crzyfshygy]

Thanks....what else could I test it for to prevent Diatoms. Any ideas. Thanks

 

[jerthunter]

I believe they sell probes you can use to test for total disolved solids, atleast I have heard people talking about them..

 

[nolson]

Its is called a TDS "Total Dissolved Solids" meter. The lower the number the meter pulls up the less crap there is in the water.

 

[crzyfshygy]

So why not just use distilled and and forget all the rest. That water is 100% zero nutients.

 

[stessman]

its true that distilled water is pure and doesnt have anything in it but that isnt the best for the tankeither otherwise everyone would be buying distillers and using distilled water in their tanks. you still want some stuff in the water

 

[crzyfshygy]

Yea but what????? I hear distillers are like thousands of $$$$$. Can anyone explain why not to use distilled. It seems better.

 

[jerthunter]

Ok, first of, no distilled water you buy will be 100% pure, which is why it was mentioned to test the different water sources available to you and use whichever is better. RO is a very good method of purifiing water and it is widely used because it is more efficient then other methods. I used to operate distilling units used to make pure water and even the purest water we made for use in power plants was not totally pure. I see no problem with using pure water in a tank because the salt mix should contain all the necessary trace elements needed in your aquarium (I may no be right here because aquarium water chemistry is slightly different then power plant water chemisty).
Oh yeah, and most other methods of getting pure water other then RO tend to be far less cost efficient.

 

[robert dri]

The bottled water I get from Wal-Mart is called "Distilled Water". The label reads the following: "PROCESSED BY CARBON FILTRATION, REVERSE OSMOSIS, DISTILLATION, UV TREATMENT, MICROFILTRATION, OXONATION. " Is this acceptable?

 

[jerthunter]

Sounds good to me. If you want to know exactly how good you would need to test it but unless you are super picky I wouldn't even worry about it.