Reverse Osmosis Unit Or Bottled

[DevonCichlid]

I've been doing some research on either setting up a R/O unit or just purchasing R/O water as needed. I just wanted to see what anyone on here is doing as far as their R/O setups. Water out of the tap here is usually right around 7.6 so it's a little high for some stock I am looking to bring in.

I am just going to start with a 20g tank where I would probably change 5g once a week so it seems like a bottle would be the way to go but over the course of the year I would have easily paid off an R/O unit. The only drawback is that space is limited so it would be tough to have an actual tub sitting around to collect the water and I also don't have a connection other then the faucet in the basement to hook up to.

Also if I either buy r/o water or a unit I will have to treat that water to add minerals and was reading that Seachem Equilibrium was useful for plants and I would prefer to try and drop the PH to around 6.5. I have some Seachem Acid Buffer but haven't used it as of yet. I can see the bottled way being easier to do that ahead of time because I can set it up, add what is needed and test to see how things are going and then add from there.

Anyways I just wanted to see if I am possibly on the right track here or if there are simpler methods. If this gets too time consuming and too complicated I likely won't enjoy it as I have lots of other tanks that need love too.

[jvision]

When I run my RO unit, I just put it right into the tank. It takes a while to fill the tank, but since it comes out cold, I figure it's a good thing to add it slowly. You have to change a pretty significant amount of water for RO to kill the buffer in our tap water - I doubt you'll have to reconstitute it if you're only changing 25%/week, and want to bring it down to 6.5 (that's a 10x reduction in pH). Of course, if you're ONLY using RO water for WCs, over time you will remove the buffering capacity of our tap water.

IMO, pH isn't the right measure for "soft water" species, anyway. Pick up a TDS meter, 100ppm or less is considered quite soft. Our tap is usually around 250ppm. I've found reducing the TDS by 1/2 in one WC is about as much as you want to do, but will get a lot of those "soft water" species in the mood right away. If you plan isn't to breed "soft water" species, then don't bother adjusting the water. My experience is that almost all will adapt fine to our tap water chemistry.

[DevonCichlid]

Well that makes a lot more sense. I wasn't getting too far with the pH thing. I'll have to get a hold of a TDS meter. Now when you're talking about the buffer in our tap water, are you talking the untreated tap water ie. no prime, etc. or are you talking already treated tap water?

Thanks for the feedback.

[jvision]

Buffering is basically water's ability to hold its pH, in our tap water there's a few things in it that will keep the pH stable around 7.6-8.0 (bicarinate, calcium, etc). Prime does nothing to alter the pH, so doesn't affect any of the buffering properties. Replacing tap water with RO (doing a WC, and adding RO instead of tap) will dilute the buffering properties, making it closer to just plain H2O (pH of 7.0).

The reason RO is often lower than 7.0, even tho it should be filtered down to pretty much just H2O, is that it either has CO2 in it, or, as a product of biological functions in our tanks, has acids in it. RO has no buffering ability, so it's VERY easy to change it from a pH of 7.0.

[ckmullin]

Get an ro system. There are more uses than just fish tanks for that water.

Try to stay away from chemicals rather acclimatize your stock to your 'standard' use water. Add some chemical for that another for this...that can be a can of worms!!

"was reading that Seachem Equilibrium was useful for plants"

garbage. don't buy that for plants. I grow plants...they come out of my ears and any other possible. If you need advice on plants I'd be happy to lend a hand, just let me know!