Water topoff question

[myelin]

I need to add some water to my tank to replace the water that has evaporated. I went to the store and got some distilled water. I bought it and when I got home read the label. It is not RO water. I assume this won't work for my tank, so the water will most likely be for human consumption now.

 

Who sells this water? I hear Wal Mark has RO/Distilled water?

 

Also, how should I go about adding the water? Just pour in the water at room temperature?

 

Thanks for the help!

[mjschomer]

Don't worry, distilled water will be fine.

[myelin]

Can someone else confirm this before I go to pouring? At 79 cents a jug, I can afford to go buy some DI/RO water.

 

Thx

[Crakeur]

I use distilled in my tanks. Even use poland springs distilled if I can't go to the drug store and need to have it delivered.

[Physh1]

Distilled is fine....no problems. Either distilles, RO, or DI will all be acceptable for reefs:D

 

Cameron

[myelin]

Thanks for the help

[jdsabin1]

I have used WalMart distilled when I'm in a pinch and need water but normally I use RO/DI water I get from my LFS. As soon as I put my big tank in I will just get an RO/DI unit and do it myself .

[skeletor]

I personally would test it for PO4 before adding it to my tank, but that's just me.....

 

-skeletor-

[Vincerama]

In theory, distilled water should be purer than RO water, right?

I mean RO water is jammed through filters and a membrane to filter out non-water stuff. Distilled water is taking steam (pure water vapour) and condensing it...like rain...

 

V

[XingTheChannel]

I've used distilled water in the big tank but needed compensating a lot that was lost.

Now I use water from the tap and it is fine. But don't follow my example and don't be shocked. Water where I live happens to be great. Guess I'm lucky!

Next weekend I'll start a nano with water I'll pick up from the sea.

Hope to succeed and save a lot in salt from now on.

 

'Sea' ya!

[onthefly]

Yup! DI "should" be pure water! RO can still have some dissolved molecules.

[Integracer]

A few questions:

Is the DI in RO/DI stand for De-ionized or Distilled? Also,

I had been using tap water and now am switching to distilled water. Do I need to add trace elements that my tap water might have been adding? Thanks!

[seabass]

You don’t need to add anything to your top off water (and top off your water daily).

 

The trace elements will come in your salt mix. However, some supplements can be added to top off water and dripped into your tank (test before adding supplements and follow the directions on each supplement closely).

 

I have one concern about distilled water; I’ve heard that if it’s processed in copper tubing, the water might contain small amounts of copper. If you use distilled water, it’s probably worth testing for copper (cheaper than killing your inverts).

[eddie29]

Most walmarts have a ro system in the front of their store. At least the 4 of them in Columbia MO do, so if this crappy college town has one i'm sure your walmarts do to.

 

Eddie

[TiGs]

I've been using distilled water up until this week(4-5months). It was costing me $1.40 per gallon which adds up.So I switched to RO/DI which only cost me $0.25 per gallon.

[eddie29]

How the heck does distilled water cost you that much? Wherever you were going was ripping the hell out of you.

 

Eddie

[TiGs]

Originally posted by eddie29

How the heck does distilled water cost you that much?  Wherever you were going was ripping the hell out of you.

 

Eddie

 

I was buying Arrowhead distilled bottled water from Ralphs grocery store. Being a name brand probably had to do with the cost. I felt I was paying too much for water so I finally bought a phosphate test kit and got some RO/DI water that the my liquer store sold. They have an Ro/DI unit in the store and you can see it in the back.