Tap Water Filter

[komet]

Does anyone use the Tap Water Filter made by Aquarium Pharmeceuticals?? I picked it up for $50 at LFS. The owner also has an aquarium maintenance business. He says that he swears by it. He claims it produces water equal to or better than a RO system. If it works like he says its gonna save my alot of cash-I have been buying distilled water every 2 weeks.

 

[striker]

When I first started my reef I though about getting a high end tap filter. I would have saved on drinking water(spring) and tank water(distilled). Unfortunately I found out it does not remove the chemicals that cause trouble and are harmful in a sw tank. Before you buy it make sure it removes phosphate, metals and other chems. I spend about $2.00 a week on distilled but have never had any problems with my tank.

 

[spankr]

I had something of the sort. It claimed that it gave pure water, and it did. The problem was that you had to buy new cartridges after 50 gallons.
My recommendation is to get a R/O filter
Just my 2 cents.

 

[pa reef pig]

I wish i could get a ro/di unit for my tank. I have a Well and its rather small I guess. I run out of water from time to time as it is and cant be throwing away 20 gallons of usable water just to get 5 gallons of pure. And if I ever did run out of water while runing it through the ro/di unit, Im sure that would be a mess and Id be constantly replacing the filters. You can tell your runing low on water when it starts to look like mud Hopefully some day I will have city water. Then I will get my ro/di system.

 

[frankl15207]

The aquarium pharmaceuticals filter will get you better water than a filter designed for drinking water (Pur / Brita). The problem is with replacement depending on the quality of your local water. I had to replace the filter every 20 gallons, which made it really expensive to operate. It actually was cheaper for me to buy distilled water than to run the filter. If you get 40 gallons out of it, that is still about $.50 per gallon. An RO/DI unit will produce more water than that, and will pay for itself faster, in addition to producing higher quality water.
Most of the waste from RO units appears to be running the water through them at too much pressure. Since the unit can't keep up, it rejects more. I get about a 1 to 1 ratio. Right now, since the weather is nice, the rejected water is dropped into another container and is used to water plants outside.
Using well water (especially in PA after the last several years of little rainfall) is a different problem. Distilled is probably a better way to go if you can't buy RO in your area.

 

[javajoe]

I have city water- and i got one. it did not work for us. they put a lot of phosphates in city water to prevent your body from absorbing lead, etc that might be picked up in the water from your pipes.
even with a fresh filter, i was testing high for phosphates, and this causes alge problems.
We buy RO water from the LFS now, unless i am lazy, for water changes i just buy salt water.
the LFS uses the same salt i do for water changes, corallife, so its works out ok.