Ro Water - Affordable Options?

[NonstickRon]

Is it feasable for someone with 2 ten gallon tanks to look into an RO water unit? What is a reasonable price per gallon to pay at a store for this?

 

[tyyrlym]

MY LFS wants a dollar a gallon for RO water.

A ~25gpd system costs about $120. Toss in another $20 for initial set up and another $10 for water conditioner to put in the stuff you need that RO takes out and you're looking at about $150 up front. If you change a total of 4 gallons a week that means that in about 38 weeks the RO system will pay for itself. Even at your low usage rates an RO system will pay for itself provided it lasts even just a year.

Just remember that you'll have to condition the water to give it some buffering capacity and essential minerals for the fish. Either cut it with tap water to get a higher than 7.0 but still acceptable pH or use an RO water conditioner.

 

[NonstickRon]

MY LFS wants a dollar a gallon for RO water.

A ~25gpd system costs about $120. Toss in another $20 for initial set up and another $10 for water conditioner to put in the stuff you need that RO takes out and you're looking at about $150 up front. If you change a total of 4 gallons a week that means that in about 38 weeks the RO system will pay for itself. Even at your low usage rates an RO system will pay for itself provided it lasts even just a year.

Just remember that you'll have to condition the water to give it some buffering capacity and essential minerals for the fish. Either cut it with tap water to get a higher than 7.0 but still acceptable pH or use an RO water conditioner.

How is RO water different than distilled water? Or those thingys in the grocery store where you put your jug in and hit the button and it gives you water that is supposedly going through some super crazy filtration methods.

 

[NonstickRon]

How is RO water different than distilled water? Or those thingys in the grocery store where you put your jug in and hit the button and it gives you water that is supposedly going through some super crazy filtration methods.

NM, found my answer to that last question elsewhere.

 

[OldMan47]

RO typically contains less than 10% of the dissolved solids that it started out with. This is too low for almost any fish but not as pure as RO/DI or distilled. I use tap water to adjust my RO to the desired hardness. My tap hardness is about 12 degrees and my RO runs about 1. By mixing them I can get anything in between. If I put a DI unit on the back end of my RO it would be more like 0.1 degrees of hardness but who needs to go that far? DI resin is costly and needs to be replaced frequently so why do it if you don't need it. There are times when tap water is so bad that it needs a DI but I wouldn't drink water that actually needed an RO/DI.

 

[NonstickRon]

Well..I mostly just drink beer. I'm just worried about the fishies.