Boiling Water

[akopley]

Is boiling tap water enough for a reef tank? I was using deer park water from the grocery store and realized that it has nitrates around 30 ppm! Where as my tap water has nitrates around 5-10 ppm. I learned online that boiling water does not remove nitrates but does remove chlorine. Any opinions are appreciated.

 

[9501gle]

Why dont you just get an RODI system.

 

[BurntOutReefer]

why not buy ro/di from LFS instead......IMO, you're asking for trouble using tap water, boiled or not.

 

[1fishkeeper]

Even if you boil the water you will still have alot of the bad things in there like copper and such. Like was said above I would eather get a RO unit or go to a store that sales RO water. You will better in the long run if you did that.

 

[akopley]

I used to have one but sold it when i got rid of my 90 gallon. I had been buying water by the gallon from the Harris Teeter but when i moved to atlanta i switched brands and to my dismay the nitrates from the bottler are higher than from the tap.

 

[calli]

Keep in mind that the drinking bottled water is different from the RO/DI that you can buy.. I am in London ON and one of the companies that supplies bottled water to our company has two different caps... blue is for just filtered.. still has all the minerals in the water and green... we here at work use it for our eye wash station.. that is RO/DI water..

 

[urchinkiller15]

Don't waste your time boiling water. Get a RO/DI unit.

 

[weluvfish54]

some areas tap water is fine..like mine

 

[akopley]

looking at the Purely H20 website, anyone have any experience with their units? Is RO enough or do i need to get RO/Di?

 

[wiscsaltwater]

with energy costs id be willing to bet that an RO filter will pay for itself over boiling gallons and gallons of water weekly.

 

[adammreef]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=12994737#post12994737 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by akopley
looking at the Purely H20 website, anyone have any experience with their units? Is RO enough or do i need to get RO/Di?

This was in the ro/di faq thread written by waterkeeper, hope this can help.


Do I need a DI stage?

You can save some money by purchasing a three-stage filter lacking the DI stage. Reverse osmosis typically removes 90-98% of all the impurities of note. If that is good enough for your purposes, then the DI stage is not necessary. RO filtration by itself is certainly better than plain tap water and in many cases is perfectly adequate.

RO filtration by itself is not adequate if your tap water contains undesirable elements that need to be reduced by more than 90-98%. For example, if there is 10 PPM of phosphates in your tap water, reducing it by 90% takes it to 1 PPM, which is still too high.

To save money up front, a DI stage can be easily added to the system at a later date.

here is the link to the whole page there is lots of great info on there its worth reading.

 

[snorvich]

Get a good RO/DI unit. Your animals are going to be worth much more than you can spend on the most expensive unit around. I have Spectrapure Maxcap DI and I highly recommend it.

 

[akopley]

thank you

 

[alextheromanian]

do this.

do this.

save your money...dont spend it on boiling water.

instead go to walkmart...they have RO water there.

buy a refilable jug (5g) or two or 3...


they charge here 33c a gallon...


see how that works for you and your tank...and then repeat the process....or if youre happy with the results save up some money and buy your own ro di unit.


ps- the ro water is sold usually in the back its a big blue machine that you place your jug into...if you walk up to it itll say its RO water not may people know that and go out and spend 200$ on a ro unit

 

[drparker]

Randy the resident Chemistry expert recommends getting the DI part. Long chemistry story cut short: RO can let bad things through that the DI will stop.

The extra sediment and carbon filters in a 5 stage unit pro-long the life of the RO membrane and DI resin.

The problem with the machines at Wal-mart or even your LFS is hoping that the filters where change when needed, because when they go past the their useful life you can get worse water out.

 

[MinnFish]

Amen, drparker :thumbsup:

 

[Flipper62]

The best water for a reef tank is RO/DI water....YES..Everything is stripped from the water.....BUT thats what you want. Then your Salt will add in all the trace elimates.

IMO....akopley.......Spend the money on a good RO/DI unit. You will save money...from buying distilled water........AND AS FAR AS Boiling water.........Thats ok for flushing out pipes...not for fish tanks.

You can get an awesome RO/DI unit from the Filter Guys.....Its only $200.00.

Its the Ocean Reef +1.....$199.00.

Here is the link.... It will be the best thing that you have ever bought

http://www.thefilterguys.biz/ro_di_systems.htm

 

[AZDesertRat]

Boiling water concentrates the wastes and make it worse! The pure water evaporates and you are left with the bad stuff in the pan.
Nothing replaces a good quality RO/DI system of your very own. You have ultimate control over the quality of water then.
If you want a good unit the 75 GPD Premium from www.buckeyefieldsupply.com can't be beat. If you want the best nothing comes close to Spectrapure which is what I own.