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The Loach Forum Archives (1)
Re: Hey... am I just tossing money down the drain?
Posted By: Craig D'Orsay <craigd@attcanada.net> In Response To: Hey... am I just tossing money down the drain? (BB Wilcox)
Date: Tuesday, 27 April 1999, at 1:35 p.m.
Yep, the RO unit is fine for tap water, although at $79, it sounds like you'd be replacing the membrane before too long (which isn't cheap) :)
I use tap water for my fish, right out of the well, which is giving me more headaches than I care for (high buffer). I'm adding a lot of sulfuric acid (sounds like fun, don't it?) to my bucket, then running an airstone through it for a week. This seems to be working, after a week, the pH is in the low 7's or high 6's. I hardly administer an exact science, I just dump some acid in and wait to check the pH, adding more raw water or acid as needed. Then I monitor the tank after the water has been added, I still have to add more acid to the tank, a few drops every couple days, but doing this is better than leaving my pH in the 8's.
I've recently nabbed some water from a friend's house that uses treated city water. I did the same thing to it, let it sit for a week with the airstone bubbling though it, I even tossed in some stuff to neutralize heavy metals & chlorine. The water still smells like a pool, even after 3 weeks of 'aging'. Difference: not much of a buffer.
So what did I do? I mixed my tap water with the city water, so I could treat my tank with levamisole. Worked like a charm. I'd like to be able to do something like that all the time, but I don't think my friend would appreciate me lugging buckets of water from his place every week, that, and I don't like swimming pool water... :)
So what to do? RO units are nice, but with everything, the cheaper it is compared to main-line units, you get what you pay for. Zoltrix anyone? :)
There are many different ways to treat your tap water for drinking, RO is one of them. Depending on how bad your water is chemical wise, you may be able to get away with an in-line carbon filter, or a smaller unit that affixes to your faucet (the in line ones are better, and last longer). There are a lot of different types of filters, from ones designed to remove magnesium (takes out that rotten smell from the water), iron, etc. Most of the treatments used today for the aquarium originated in treating human drinking water (UV filters, RO units, etc).
Best thing to do is have your water professionally tested, to find out exactly what is coming out of the tap, then an appropriate filter/solution can be prescribed based on such things as household daily water consumption, the price you're willing to pay, what type of meter (timed, volume, computerized, etc).
Craig
