distilled water questions

[i love picotopes]

if i use distilled water to top off my aquarium do i need to use water conditionners to treat it

[Bamboo]

No, treat it just like RO/DI water.

[bdare]

Don't just assume distilled water you buy from the store is pure enough to use in your reef tank w/o some risk of an algae bloom. I'd invest in a TDS meter to check the water before I added it to my tank. I use NOTHING but 0 TDS RO/DI in my tank.

[Aelvion]

Don't just assume distilled water you buy from the store is pure enough to use in your reef tank w/o some risk of an algae bloom. I'd invest in a TDS meter to check the water before I added it to my tank. I use NOTHING but 0 TDS RO/DI in my tank.

 

 

+1

 

I just tested a bottle of distilled water from walmart for my friend yesterday, 6TDS.

He is now buying an RO/DI unit

[Bamboo]

+1

 

I just tested a bottle of distilled water from walmart for my friend yesterday, 6TDS.

He is now buying an RO/DI unit

 

wow man thats weird, distilled water is supposed to be pure h20

[Coastie]

Anyone ever tested the RO bottled water from walmart. The sams choice one with the green cap?

[Bill Nye]

Anyone ever tested the RO bottled water from walmart. The sams choice one with the green cap?

 

I would assume that distilled water from walmart would have a lower tds than the RO typically unless the input water is very pure to begin with. In theory distilled should have a 0 tds as its pure water thats collected from condensed steam as someone already stated.

[Spencerx]

+1

 

I just tested a bottle of distilled water from walmart for my friend yesterday, 6TDS.

He is now buying an RO/DI unit

 

Strange, you sure your meter is calibrated?

[AZDesertRat]

Distilled is often not 0 TDS. One problem is some contaminants such as volatiles evaporate with the steam them get recondensed in the treated water. Since the water is so agressive and trying to get back to its natural "dirty" state, you may also pick up contaminants from the plastic bottles depending on the type of plastic.

RO/DI is more pure than distilled with distilled in second place. RO only is dependent on the source water and how well the membrane is functioning since it is only a 90-99% efficient device at best. If the source water TDS is low you could possibly get low TDS but I would not ever purchase any water regardless of treatment method without owning and using a handheld TDS meter, they are cheap insurance.