What do I add to RO water

[daisymac]

My DH works at a place that has RO water, and he brought home a couple gallons for the tank. I read that you cannot just dump it in the tank, you need to add minerals back into it.

On another forum I found an article about this, and the author said you could use baking soda and epsom salts, but he wasn't sure how to do that. He used "kent" I think, but said it was a bit of a bother. It also gave a formula for mixing tap water with thr RO water but that read like greek to me since I have no idea what my water readings out of my tap are. Does anyone have a practical way to figure this out?

[Mzungu]

Re: What do I add to RO water

Hmm, I don't know about practicality, but I've always just added it to the tank as it was. Usually RO water is used because the tap water is full of nasty things that you don't want in your tank (chemicals, etc.) or because you want to soften the water and/or lower your pH. I may be wrong here, but I think baking soda is used to buffer the water while bringing it to a higher pH and making it harder? Basically, the ratio of tap water to RO water depends on what your fish like best. If they like softer water, then more RO is needed. I don't think there's a specific formula b/c everyone's water is so different, but if you have a target hardness or pH in mind, you can just experiment with adding small amounts of RO water to a gallon or so of your tap water until you've hit what you want, and then you have the ratio to apply to the whole tank. Or you can just add some when you do a water change. I think the key is just not to alter the water chemistry too quickly and shock the fish. But a couple gallons in a 55 shouldn't be a problem.

[rrocket2002]

Re: What do I add to RO water

I admit it.....I'm brain dead and its Friday....that's my excuse and sticking to it.  :bswithstupid:

What does RO stand for?

Raul

[Mzungu]

Re: What do I add to RO water

:emtidea:  Reverse Osmosis, I hope!    

[HFBfounder]

Re: What do I add to RO water

Hmm, I don't know about practicality, but I've always just added it to the tank as it was. Usually RO water is used because the tap water is full of nasty things that you don't want in your tank (chemicals, etc.) or because you want to soften the water and/or lower your pH. I may be wrong here, but I think baking soda is used to buffer the water while bringing it to a higher pH and making it harder? Basically, the ratio of tap water to RO water depends on what your fish like best. If they like softer water, then more RO is needed. I don't think there's a specific formula b/c everyone's water is so different, but if you have a target hardness or pH in mind, you can just experiment with adding small amounts of RO water to a gallon or so of your tap water until you've hit what you want, and then you have the ratio to apply to the whole tank. Or you can just add some when you do a water change. I think the key is just not to alter the water chemistry too quickly and shock the fish. But a couple gallons in a 55 shouldn't be a problem.

I agree with Mzungu. When I had a marine tank, I only used RO(yes, reverse osmosis) and mixed in the salt. Just test the RO water before you pour it in to make sure it's near your current readings. Either way, you should be ok as long as you're not doing more than a 50% change at once.

[wvgdiscus]

Re: What do I add to RO water

On my breeders I use nothing but RO water.

Just remeber the fish like to have stable water at all times.
If they are happy with what you are useing now stick with it.
Try not to make any sudden changes to the water.
If you do change the type of water do it slowly.

[Obed]

Re: What do I add to RO water

I use ro water in my hatchery and the ratio I use is 75% ro and 25% tap water, of course my tap water has been put through my prefiltration system of a 10 micon sediment, 2- 5 micron carbon blocks and a .5 micron final filter. I use a holding tank and mix the water with a pump and add muratic acid to get to the ph level I want, the mixing of the ro and tap water gives me the conductivity I am looking for. I would not recommend the use of ro water with out premixing and setting your parameters before putting it into the tank, indescriminate use (use with out setting perameters first) can cause your tank perameters to shift wildly and do more harm to your fish than consistant use of hard, high ph water. do what you can do and have a reliable, repeatable process. In salt water tanks use of pure ro is not really use of pure ro because the salt mix you are adding puts in the minerals you need and using the same mix consistantly give you a reliable, repeatable process. The ph and conductivity you would shoot for would depend on the fish you are raising and what you are trying to do with them. My ro system puts out 600 gallons per day and I use it with all my breeding pairs of angelfish, but after eggs are hatched the fry are transistioned to filtered city water before selling to the lfs. I have tried the various mixes that are available in the lfs, but found them to be too expensive and too unreliable for my volume of use. If you only have one or two tanks you are using and use less than 100 gallons of ro a week they might be cost effective, but I find mixing the city water with the ro to get the conductivity i want to be quick and cheap.

[HFBfounder]

Re: What do I add to RO water

good point on the saltwater mix.

[guppymax]

Re: What do I add to RO water

I would not put the RO water in your tank unless you have a reason for wanting to. Generally speaking it is best for your fish to adapt to the water you have readily available. With a little luck that should turn out to be pretty much the same thing every time and of an acceptable quality after a little pretreatment. This may not always be the case.

You might add RO water to soften the water to get your angels, corys or other softwater fish to breed. A lot of people breed angels and corys without doing this.

You might acquire some fish that are adapted to soft water and you might want to duplicate the water they are adapted to. You might keep discus in soft water always. You might purchase guppies that are used to soft water from a breeder up north and gradually change their water back to hard over a couple of years. Rapid changes can be disasterous. Maybe you tried that straim before and they all got sick and died after you put them in our hard water.

You might want to duplicate a certain type of water ( seawater, lake Malawi, great salt lakes ) and rebuild it from a recipe. Suposedly more males are born when the salt content of lake Malawi is reproduced for some of the ciclids. Since everyones tap water is different all over the country you might start with RO water to use the same recipe as anyone in the country. One would add so much of a certain salt mixture, buffers, acid and whatever to a given volume of RO water.

I like a lot of the information in the other answers and this does not add so much as it is just kind of a summary.

max

[Obed]

Re: What do I add to RO water

also keep in mind that when you use ro water and some means to lower the ph, that with low conductivity and low ph, some medication act differently and meds that you use in  high ph, hard water can become deadly because  low ph soft water will cause a process of osmosis and the meds will be forced into the fish, products with copper are one example of this.

[daisymac]

Re: What do I add to RO water

Thanks for all the info. I just want to lower the ph a bit - not much. I guess I will just have to mix the tap and the RO, and test. I certainly don't want to hurt them! So far they aren't on any medications. Actually I have never had any of my fish need meds, and I hope I never need to. :wink:

[Mzungu]

Re: What do I add to RO water

GREAT philosophy! There are so many people out there that unfortunately just add meds and ask questions later, and that can do more harm than good. Don't want to change the subject of this thread, but I just wanted to commend you on that!  :emtthumbs: