Why you NEED RO/DI!!!

[bv_reefer]

Originally Posted by surgeonfish

Fisherman
It is true that you can spoil your tank with rotting/decaying food. However, we are talking about something different; possible contaminants from the water supply including chlorine, heavy metals (lead, copper, etc) not an explosion of bacteria from decomposing food.

-yup excess nutrients can cause bad problems, but i can't imagine them being any where near as bad as chlorine,chloramine,copper and all that gunk...

[supersmile]

What exactly is an RO/DI and where do you get them.....sorry I am a bit new with this stuff. What is a reasonable price for them?

[Doug]

Originally Posted by supersmile

What exactly is an RO/DI and where do you get them.....sorry I am a bit new with this stuff. What is a reasonable price for them?

They are for filtering your source water. Water passed though a series of carbon & micron filters and then through a membrane which removes most impurities. It can also be run through a DI filter after, to remove anything the ro filter leaves behind.

If you wish put reverse osmosis in the search engine and it will bring up lots of RO threads. Most of our sponsers carry them.

[theredben]

I was just pondering over the last couple of days if it is sooooo bad to use regular water for water changes and only use ro/di for evaporation replacement. I was thinking that the only reason that MOST people see a problem is that they are using 20ppm water to replace the 0 ppm water that evaporated. This would be an upward trend that would end up with a bad case of algea.

[Doug]

I do use commercially purchased ro water for water changes and my ro water for top-off. I would not use our tapwater. I only wish it was 20ppm but more like 400ppm.

[spencerC]

Could i test the ppm in my water?
Do aquatic stores sell test kits for that?

[surgeonfish]

Originally Posted by spencerC

Could i test the ppm in my water?
Do aquatic stores sell test kits for that?

You sure can test your water with a TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) meter. They are either hand held or can be attached to your water purifier to test the incoming and outgoing water. Most LFS that sell water purifiers should carry TDS meters.

Link: http://www.jlaquatics.com/phpstore/s...t_ID=ro-aftdsh