Brita Filtered water

[Arfie]

Is there any benefit/drawback to using water filtered through say a Brita water filter or equivalent to do your water changes?

I'm not daft enough to think that it is viable for you guys with big tanks or even lots of smaller tanks, but I only have a 10G tank, so it's not gonna cost me a fortune (finally a benefit to a little tank ) and I am buying one for me anyway. Just thought, if it makes water cleaner for me, surely it should be the same for my buddies and in theory should eliminate the need for dechlorinator .

Any thoughts or experiences.

Arfie

 

[Aquascaper]

You would need to check what it removes. I know it takes out heavy metals but what else i don't not.
The two things you need to remove are Chlorine and Chloramine, if it does those i don't see why you can't

 

[Arfie]

Cheers Aquascaper,

According to the Brita website Click Here.

The Brita water filter jug uses replaceable cartridges that reduce chlorine and other impurities such as lead, copper and aluminium that affect the taste of your tap water. The Brita cartridge also reduces limescale that creates the unsightly scum on tea and coffee and the fur in your kettle.

I assume that reducing Lead/copper & aluminium is a good thing also for the fish and I know there's no chloramine in our water supply, not sure about the "removes limescale", surely this would alter the KH (or is it GH ) of the water would it not?

Also as I do water changes of about 10 Litres at a time it would only cost 25p per water change which I'm more than happy to spend on my fish.

Arfie

 

[WheelmanCA19]

reduces chlorine

Doesn't say elimintates, so I'd say you'd still need to add dechorinator to the water you use in your tank.

 

[ProGolferCL6]

chroline evaporates in a day

chloramines are the ones u have to worry about, but their are chemicals that will do the job

 

[yhbae]

I thought their media is basically active carbon?

 

[csr mel]

take some of the filtered water to youre LFS and they will test it to see if the brita eliminated any possible chlorine and chloramine.

also, you might just take some unfiltered water and have them test it so you can see a before and after.

 

[FishDan]

The only potential issue is if the filter removes other thngs, like trace minerals from the water, that may benefit your aquarium. Especially if you keep plants. The filter is essentially activated carbon, so it would remove beneficial trace elemetns (just like your aquarium filter does when used with carbon). If you have to add fertilizers and trace elements for your plants to thrive anyhow, there is no difference. If you don't add these things, and don't want to (and of course keep live plants) the extra filtering should probably be avoided.

\Dan