Ro Water?

[evilchild]

talking to some one over the weekend and they said RO water is the best thing for fish tanks? they also said it was the cleanest water you can get. is this right? and can you drink it if it's that clean. also where would you get it from?

or is it just better to use treated tap water?

 

[CFC]

It all depend on what you are keeping, some fish require soft perfectly clean water in order to survive and breed. R/O is pure water with everything stripped out, in its raw form it is actually dangerous to drink or keep fish in and you must add back the trace elements to make it stable, raw R/O water will actually draw minerals out of living things to equalise itself again. R/O is also incredibly wastefull with most units wasting around 3-4 gallons for every gallon of pure water it creates, for those on water meters this can get very costly.

For general run of the mill common community fish treated tapwater is perfectly fine.

 

[andywg]

R/O is also incredibly wastefull with most units wasting around 3-4 gallons for every gallon of pure water it creates, for those on water meters this can get very costly.

But is there anything to stop their neighbour (on rates) from selling them cut price water?

 

[Bignose]

It all depend on what you are keeping, some fish require soft perfectly clean water in order to survive and breed. R/O is pure water with everything stripped out, in its raw form it is actually dangerous to drink or keep fish in and you must add back the trace elements to make it stable, raw R/O water will actually draw minerals out of living things to equalise itself again. R/O is also incredibly wastefull with most units wasting around 3-4 gallons for every gallon of pure water it creates, for those on water meters this can get very costly.

The bolded part here cannot be overemphasized. Which is why in unequivocal terms should you be drink RO water. You body (and fish's bodies for that matter) actually take in a significant amount of minerals from the water. RO water is so pure, it will take those minerals back out -- you will do far, far more harm. Will it kill you immediately? No. But, in the long run, you are going to be much worse off.

If you want to have a sip to see what pure water tastes like, you certainly can. It's not like it's a poison or anything. I've tasted it because I was curious what pure waster tastes like. Tastes like nothing if you are curious. But, you shouldn't drink it for everyday use. There is such a thing as too pure.

 

[4ftguppy]

Unless you have a lot of tanks, collecting rainwater might be a better way to go

 

[CFC]

Rainwater has draw backs too, if you live in a city area the rain clouds (being essentially R/O vapour) will soak up pollution from the air and even in rural areas if the wind is blowing the wrong way you could end up with contaminated rain water. You can run the water through a carbon filter to remove pollution but personally i think rainwater is just too much of a potential hazard to risk it.