Reverse Osmosis

[papania]

I am new to the hobby and I was wondering how important reverse osmosis is for my tank. I have a 44 gal that has been cycling for about 3 weeks and so far all is good. I currently do not have an RO unit, but I was going to start looking into them.

thanks,

 

[zack1a]

It is VERY important. Portions of the water that you put in your tank now will likely be in there until you drain your tank. You never know what your tap water may have in it so its best to play it safe.

 

[RokleM]

I wouldn't go to that extreme zack1a, implying that he's hosed having used normal water... But yes, using "clean" water is very important. A couple large water changes during the tank cycle (after you've acquired RO/DI water of course) would not be a bad idea. RO/DI is what you should be looking at, not just a RO unit. There are a number of options:

1) Make the investment now in a solid unit. BuckeyeFieldSupply would be one of my personal favorites, however there are quite a number of solid sponsors on RC that supply similar units.
2) Leverage your local club and get RO/DI from another member
3) Get it from a LFS (but ensure it's checked and/or a store that can be trusted).

#1 is always the best long term in my opinion if you have a tank larger than a nano (and even good in that case a lot of the time), but only you can make the call based on your financial situation.