Demineralised water (Steam distilled water) for top up

[Mark18]

I bought a 5L bottle of demineralised water which says steam distilled water in brackets. Had it tested by my local pool shop and came back with:

 

TDS 116ppm

pH 6.9

Alk 41

hardness 18

phosphate 0

copper 0

chlorine 0.27

 

Will this be ok for topping up my marine nano tank and also for using on my kids freshwater tropical tank (10-20% water changes)?

 

[Ratvan]

I'm not sure regarding the Marine Tank, but if you want to put this in your FW tank you will need to re mineralise it.

You have several options for remineralizing the water. Remineralizers generally fall into two categories: the solid powdered form and liquid. Solids are cheaper, but usually require preparing the water and letting it rest before adding to the tank. Whereas the liquid remineralizers can be mixed with water and added to the tank immediately.

A quick google search should lead you to some options. You just want to be sure that the remineralizer you choose is optimal for whatever tropical fish you have. Some are targeted at the mineral requirements of specific species

[kimberbee]

I would not use anything more than 5tds for topping off my reef tanks. And even then, I prefer it to be 0.

[jservedio]

No - this is basically tap water, and is chlorinated. If you want to buy water to use for top up, you need to either go to the LFS and buy RO/DI water or go to Walmart and buy gallon jugs of distilled water (it will read 0 TDS).

[Clown79]

No. That's pretty high tds.

 

You want distilled water that's ozonated. The kind you can get at walmart, grocery stores, and pharmacy.

 

Demineralised water is not distilled. It's just gone through the steam distillation process but without the full pronation process, it still has stuff in it.

 

Or you want RODI water.

[Mark18]

Thanks for the replies. I also had the option of distilled water but wasn’t sure which was cleaner. I’ll get a bottle of distilled and test to confirm tds and chlorine levels once again.

 

Also looking at buying a RODI filter but probably a few weeks away. Have seen an under counter unit with an outlet to provide reminerilised RO into 15L tank for drinking and another branch from the DI part which I will feed into a 100L storage tank for my aquariums.

 

from the replies, would I be correct to assume distilled or RODI can be used direct into my marine without any treatment but for my FW tropical a remineralisation supplement should be used.

 

[Clown79]

Distilled should have nothing it. 

 

Both rodi and distilled should require no pre treatment

[Ratvan]

6 minutes ago, Mark18 said:

Thanks for the replies. I also had the option of distilled water but wasn’t sure which was cleaner. I’ll get a bottle of distilled and test to confirm tds and chlorine levels once again.

 

Also looking at buying a RODI filter but probably a few weeks away. Have seen an under counter unit with an outlet to provide reminerilised RO into 15L tank for drinking and another branch from the DI part which I will feed into a 100L storage tank for my aquariums.

 

from the replies, would I be correct to assume distilled or RODI can be used direct into my marine without any treatment but for my FW tropical a remineralisation supplement should be used.

 

FW you really want either de-chlorinated tap water (use a conditioner) OR Purified Mineral Water