Pump For Water Changes

[always4lora]

I have no idea what an HMA is but RO water is a bad idea for a water change. It has no minerals in it and fish cannot live in "pure" water. They need some minerals in the water to avoid having their bodies absorb more water than their system can get rid of. Freshwater fish fight this battle all the time but if they have a high enough mineral content in their water, they can do it successfully. If you put fish into straight RO or distilled or de-ionized water, they will not survive it. If you do it to them gradually by doing water changes using pure water, they will start to look sick and you will just not know what is happening until it is too late. In your mind you will have done nothing new, you have always done water changes using RO so that can't be the problem, right? The thing is, until you cross some critical mineral level for your particular fish, it will work just fine.

RO would need minerals adding, HMA doesn't mess with the water ph or anything like that just removes Heavy Metals and chlorines making it safe for your fish.
nothing needs adding back into the water with HMA filters.

I have this un : http/www.devotedly-discus.co.uk/acatalog/info_DD_HMA_80C.html

 

[OldMan47]

Curiosity got the best of me. Now I know that an HMA filter is what we would call a whole house filter in the US, except that it runs an extra stage of carbon filtration in an attempt to remove chlorine and chloramine effectively. Cartridge expense looks to me like a reason to suspect that the extra bit of chlorine removal is an expensive way to get that benefit. I also found it described by some as an RO with the RO membrane removed. In my own case, with a 4 stage RO, a 3 stage filter sounds like exactly what I would have with the RO chamber removed.

 

[chrisbassist]

On t1karmanns build he ended up going with an HMA. Because with waterchanges, it would cost a lot more in water co ditioner than it would with the HMA. It would have cost close to £100 just to fill the tank using normal conditioner... So the HMAs can be a lot cheaper in the long run.

Plus it meant a constant automatic water change system could be used...

 

[always4lora]

My replacement cxartridges cost me £30 and you get around 70000litres out of them. Not to expensive really.

 

[onebto]

I just started using a home made set up like pictured in kaivalagi's post works great

Regards onebto.

 

[OldMan47]

I must accept the cost / benefit ratios posted by others here. I have no direct experience with what they are calling a HMA system. It is only something that I have read about based on their comments.