Wot Reverse Osmosis Water Unit(r O Water)wld U Buy

[seanie112]

hi there hope this is in the right place !!
hi am am thinking of buying a reverse osmosis water unit(r o water) that are on ebay for my fish tank as i have L182 bristlenose x12 they are blackwater fish
prices are around 40.00 pounds upto 85.00 pounds on u know where

been told i cld use ro water unit or rain water or soaking bogwood

but i thight if i buy a r o water be good to drink anyway wot one wld u buy

100 GALLON per day Reverse Osmosis With booster pump 5stage

or

50gallon per day per day Reverse Osmosis 5stage

or


3stage 50gallon per day per day Reverse Osmosis

this is wot i got told



(The high pH indicates that you are on the hard water side of the southwest part of the country. As barbie says, these are black-water species, so they live in water that is very low pH (around 4 - but they will be fine in a tank with pH 6-7) and nearly no mineral content at all (no hardness or buffer capacity).

It is of course possible that the eggs go bad for some other reason, but I'd say some softer water is the right solution.

Unfortunately, it's not easy to fix that - RO water is the only "simple" solution.
It's not the ONLY solution... You could move to somewhere where there is soft tap-water, or you could use distilled or de-ionized water (however the latter usually involves a first step of RO to remove the "rough stuff", then DI to remove the ions that passed through the RO unit). And of course, you can buy RO water from your local fish-shop, but after a few buckets wroth of water, you have paid for the RO unit.

Note that when looking for RO units, you should take care to check the cost of replacement cartridges too. My RO unit cost about £70, and a fulll set of replacement cartridges set me back about £60. I'm quite sure that next time I'm up for renewing the cartridges, I'm going for a new complete unit from ROMAN. )

i wld put a link but i think i am not allowered so i wont put one incast

let us know

 

[rabbut]

Wrong section I'm afraid, would be better in tropical discussion

What is your pH, GH and KH. I would not recomend using RO unless you are 100% on water chemistory. A pH of 4 would be bad for most aquaium species, though most plecs available are wild caught... Local or commercially bred fish though will likley pass away with a pH that low. Wild stock might take it if aclimated very carefully, but I wouldn't do it personally.

You cannot use RO neet, it would eventually kill your fish. There are no electrolites in the RO water if the membrane is working correctly, so it needs mixing with tap water or mineral retopics

Remember with RO that you will only get mebe 1/4 of the quoted flow rates from an non-boosted unit, or three quaters the quoted for the boosted. Low pressure will slow the flow from the unit. Low temperature will slow the flow from the unit in summer. The membranes are spec'ed at about 60psi and 25c, so 15-30psi of mains pressure at 4-14c is going to realy impact on performance. The booster pump on your 100gpd unit will help boost performance, but not by loads in winter.

RO-MAN and Osmotics are the two "best" brands, and most units have interchangeable filters. The standord membrance is 10" long and about 3" diameter. Likewise for the pre-filters length wise, or 4-5" diameter. If they are non-standord size, you can generaly double the cost of replacements, as you will have to buy the manufacturers own brand

HTH
Rabbut

 

[seanie112]

tested to day it was the following

ph is 7.5 to 8.0 dark green
nitrite no2 0.1 clear or light pink
nitrate no3 5 clear or light pink
ammonia nh3 nh4 0.0 clear
test kit used is nutrafin test kit


been told the L182 bristlenose will not breed but they have but the eggs have died before they hatch


been told best to get ro water and lower the ph



!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

 

[rabbut]

Well, KH is the thing to pay attention to. If they are spawning at the current pH, it isn't your issue. Infertile eggs is either poor parental care (the male leaves/eats the eggs after laying) or a high KH making the females egg shells thicker and thus harder for the male pleco's milt to penetrate and fertilise, or finaly, one of the parents aren't fertile.

I think you need a KH test kit before you think about the RO unit. Without knowing the KH, trying to mix in RO may be a disaster waiting to happen. Secondly, you may be wasting your money on an RO unit, if the KH is low enough already.

I'm guessing that the person that surgested RO and pH lowering is the same person that said they would not breed to start with yes?

All the best
Rabbut

 

[seanie112]

ok ill get a kh tester 2mrw ie sunday

the block who sed abt the ro water he breeds the L182 and sells them..
my lot came from two poeple one lot ie 1xmale 3x female then i brought another lot of them 2xmale and 6xfemales none of them breed before i had them ill try the kh tester ill get one then let u know ill post it on here so u know wot it is at the moment i have but in some blackwater extract was put in the tank on thursday
ph is little but lower at abt 7.0 to 7.5 today ill keep u informed

 

[seanie112]

my 5 Stage Reverse Osmosis RO Water Filter + Booster Pump + TDS built in

just turned up only thing is now finding someone who knows how to fit it lol

 

[OldMan47]

A common misconception is that RO ends up with water without minerals in it. Most really good RO units are rated to remove about 90% of TDS, not all of it. That is the reason that RO / DI units are made. The DI won't exhaust as quickly if the water going into it is low in TDS but it still has a limited throughput. For fish keeping purposes, an RO might actually get me into the right range for some blackwater fish. My RO output is around 30 to 35 PPM of TDS as measured using a conductivity meter, it varies with the input water. That is roughly a GH of 2 degrees. I do get a pH of about 7.0 but not exactly and have almost no buffer in my RO water. I would expect an RO/DI to get me down into the sub 5 ppm range of TDS but who really needs water like that.
As far as practical RO units, if you intend to drink the RO as well as use it in your fish setup, get an RO without the DI. If used as drinking water keep in mind that the retention tank is needed so you don't need to stand at the sink for 10 minutes to fill a glass of water. The OP gave an example of an RO with a booster pump. That booster pump is only needed on a low pressure system such as the ones that are found in single family well systems. In a high pressure system, like a typical municipal system, the booster can overpressurize the RO system and cause damage to it. Be sure to match your RO to the actual water supply that you have. Filters are replaced quite often and are not very expensive but replacing the RO membrane is not a viable option because they are so expensive. When the time comes for a new membrane, the pressure tank has years of low pressure use on it, the tubing that connects everything is becoming brittle and most of the hardware is showing its age. At that point you may as well replace the whole unit because it is so little more than the cost of a membrane there is no need to put up with worn out hardware.
I see I'm too late. Seanie, if you have normal water pressures in your home, like most municipal systems, you do not want to install the booster pump. Check your water pressure by calling the supplier and make sure the booster won't put you over the top on RO pressure.

 

[seanie112]

we are getting there its set up but not running as yet ass one of the parts is broke so waiting for it to come didnt know till to day when we started to set it up shld be up and running by tuesday hopefully





edit it takes 3hours to do 25 ltrs so not to bad really it only does 12.5 ltrs every one hour and takes 30mins to empty the tank then it fulls up hour later then empty it again so on not to bad i think
so wot i done i tokk out 50ltrs from the corner tank where i have L182 bristlenose going to do 90% water change (190ltrs) and at ro water is this right or no



just tested the ro water and ph is 4.5/5 ph

 

[rabbut]

Oldman, with a TDS of 30-35 I'd speculate that the membrane is either in need of replacement or you are using a poor quality membrane. RO Man, Osmotics and Seachem rate their membranes to remove a total of 99.9% of all disolved muck in the water, and they recomend you replace the membrane whenever the TDS gets above 4ppm. We ran a 100GPD unit at work, almost solidly, for 6 years and the membrane never outputted above about 2ppm the whole time We had to upgrade to a 200GPD unit though due to increased demand for RO (a Merlin unit that BTW still isn't enpough some times...) and it goes thorough a membrane every 3 months, with poor quality membranes constantly being supplied for replacements by the management....(apparently they haven't heard of false economies)

Seanie, remember to ditch the first 2 hours output when it's going. Membranes ship with a resin coating over them to keep them damp. This must be flushed off before the water is safe for fish use At all times the membrane should be kept wet

All the best
Rabbut

 

[seanie112]

update

today we have change the tank corner 252ltr tank from gravel to sand and added caves and bogwood and some plants
plus i taken nearly all the water part from abt 10% i am at the moment putting in ro water to full it up then i will be adding the fish bk in as they are at the moment in a holding tank 3ft then on friday will be putting the L182 bristlenose bk in just found a female traped found her dead dont know how ong she been there for
so now i have 3x male and 8x females going bk in tank i am hoping to put a trio in there own tank just after xmas
will add a photo of the tank was before the change and a photo after when i can in the next couple days

 

[Jim Curtis]

You need to slowly acclimate them to that new water or they will die from the shock of the PH change.

 

[seanie112]

ok the ph is still on 7.5 done last nite i have added abt 95ltrs of water or more so far its abt half way full will do another ph test later

oh and the ro water ph is 5.0


i have had so much trouble with this ro water unit pipes leaking this morning and found the kitchen floor fooded again with around 12ltrs of water from the leaking pipe
being replaced and now another two are leaking having trouble with seller now has he has replace two lots now

 

[seanie112]

just done another test after i have added 25ltrs of ro water and the ph is now between 6.0 and 6.5
i have another 80ltrs or so to be added to the tank

 

[seanie112]

photo of wot it was like little old photo just had more plants in it

this photo is wot its like now half full of ro water 90% and 10% old water

 

[seanie112]

thinking abt selling L182 bristlenose them how much are they worth !!!
we paid alot of money for them just thought i ask wot they are worth
the norm is how much wld anyone pay for them



happy new year 2 u all