RO water

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pugcrush

Guest
Hello! I've been researching about saltwater tanks for some time now. One thing I'm stumped on is regarding RO water. I will sure have this in my setup after reading about the benefits.
First, I do want to invest in a RO unit. Any good recommendations - As far as value (getting the job done) & price. It looks like these things can be several hundred dollars.
Secondly, I hear people say you can pick RO water directly from your local grocery store or Walmart. How is it labeled?
Thanks for you input!
 

scott t

Active Member
Originally Posted by pugcrush
http:///forum/post/3157089
Hello! I've been researching about saltwater tanks for some time now. One thing I'm stumped on is regarding RO water. I will sure have this in my setup after reading about the benefits.
First, I do want to invest in a RO unit. Any good recommendations - As far as value (getting the job done) & price. It looks like these things can be several hundred dollars.
Secondly, I hear people say you can pick RO water directly from your local grocery store or Walmart. How is it labeled?
Thanks for you input!

It has been my experience that they offer the RO at Walmart Supercenters (ones with Grocery store in them) IF you go back to where their Bottled water is there should be an RO water Machine there. You fill your own Jugs that they sell.. Hope this helps!!!
 

reefkprz

Active Member
as for buying at your local stores, maybe the water will be decent if they have kept up on filter changes. maybe not, but its better than tap water untill you buy your own unit. how much better depends on how often they maintain their filters......
what you really want if your going to spend the money is a RO/DI unit
some of the best units out there are air water ice units
heres a google on them
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=air+water+ice+RO+units
 
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pugcrush

Guest
Thanks for the responses so far. Please pardon my dumb questions, but does the RO water still need to be treated? ie. dechlorinated? It appears normally the chlorine & all other impurities are removed leaving only natural water. Would that be a correct statement? Another dumb question, but is distilled water just the finished product? Thanks again!
 

xcali1985

Active Member
Distilled water is usually ran through a filter, RO water is pushed through a membrane. Distilled water can still contain harmful metals, its usually just tapwater filtered an extra time for taste.
 

reefkprz

Active Member
Originally Posted by Xcali1985
http:///forum/post/3158015
Distilled water is usually ran through a filter, RO water is pushed through a membrane. Distilled water can still contain harmful metals, its usually just tapwater filtered an extra time for taste.
umm maybe you should google distillation.... because your way off base on what it means.
 

reefkprz

Active Member
Originally Posted by pugcrush
http:///forum/post/3157961
Thanks for the responses so far. Please pardon my dumb questions, but does the RO water still need to be treated? ie. dechlorinated? It appears normally the chlorine & all other impurities are removed leaving only natural water. Would that be a correct statement? Another dumb question, but is distilled water just the finished product? Thanks again!
there is no need to treat RO water. your ro/di filter handles the chlorine and chlomines.
no distilled water is water purified through distillation, what you have is Ro filtered water at the end. the purity levels are pretty close to the same but its not distilled water.
 

big

Active Member
Originally Posted by reefkprZ
http:///forum/post/3158037
umm maybe you should google distillation.... because your way off base on what it means.
Yep that was about as wrong as it gets.......One think to watch for in the old days was water distilled with copper tubing.. I think that is a thing of the past.
Xcali, THAT IS A SHOT OF MY TANK IN YOUR AVATAR
If you are going to use it please do not post things that are so incorrect .....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distilled_water
I too think the Airwarterice units are great..
Google the term "Airwaterice"
MY TANK
 

skidemon95

Member
Originally Posted by big
http:///forum/post/3158056
Yep that was about as wrong as it gets.......One think to watch for in the old days was water distilled with copper tubing.. I think that is a thing of the past.
Xcali, THAT IS A SHOT OF MY TANK IN YOUR AVATAR
If you are going to use it please do not post things that are so incorrect .....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Distilled_water
I too think the Airwarterice units are great..
Google the term "Airwaterice"
MY TANK


thats where i got my unit from. works great. your better of getting one than buying gallons at the store. depending what size tank you get it will pay for itself quickly. i got a 210g and at $1 gallon plus tax was more than the unit itself.
 

uneverno

Active Member
Here's the juice:
A) Distillation. This is the process by which water is boiled and the steam is recaptured. The assumption is that water has a lower boiling point than most of its impurities, so the impurities are left behind in the boiling chamber. This results in fairly pure H2O, but there are atoms and molecules that escape the process.
B) Reverse Osmosis. This is the process by which water is forced through a semi-permiable membrane which removes certain molecules from the water. This is a good methodology as well, but as with distilled water, there are molecules that escape the process.
C) De-Ionization. Removes an-ions and cat-ions from the water that neither Distillation nor RO can achieve. This results in the purest H2O that can be achieved on a practical level.
 

uneverno

Active Member
Here's the juice as far as I know:
A) Distillation. This is the process by which water is boiled and the steam is recaptured. The assumption is that water has a lower boiling point than most of the impurities contained within it and as a result, those impurities are left behind in the boiling chamber. This results is fairly pure H2O. There are, however, atoms and molecules that escape the process or that are added back in through the cooling tubing (usually Copper = bad for inverts) used to recapture the steam.
B) Reverse Osmosis. This is the process by which water is forced through a semi-permiable membrane which removes certain molecules from the water. This is a good methodology as well, but as with distilled water, there are molecules that escape the process.
C) De-Ionization. Removes an-ions and cat-ions from the water that neither Distillation nor RO alone can achieve. This results in the purest H2O that can be achieved on a practical level, but by itself it's expensive in both water usage (one gets about 1 gallon of DI water per 3 gallons consumed) and filter membranes.
The best way to get the purest water as I understand it, is to use a combination of both RO and DI. There are two benefits to this methodology:
1) RO removes most of the impurities quickly and fairly inexpensively.
2) DI removes, for all practical purposes, the rest. ROing the water first speeds the process up and lowers the cost in both water and membrane consumption on the DI end of it.
Depending on your initial source, there are many ways to filter your water. I use a 5 stage process which involves the following in chronological order:
1) Sediment filter (takes out crap you can see)
2) Activated Carbon
3) Reverse Osmosis
4) De-Ionization
5) Dedicated Silicon remover
 
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