ro water

[es1887]

back in may i got my first ro unit. for six years i just used my tap water. the tap water in boulder is pretty clean at around 45-50 tds. for all six of those years i battled with slime, hair, scuzzy, and any other kind of nuisance algae you can think of. it caused me to do more water changes (using just the tap water), which would never really fix the problem. it has cost me way over what a ro unit all those years ago would have. so just for recording purposes i took pictures once a month for the past three months. i think that the progress is awesome. i have not changed one thing, just using ro water now, and maybe a few good acquisitions. i actually do less water changes now than i did before.
this one was taken in june

this one yesterday

it is not incredibly amazing, but for something that i had trouble with for years i am a little excited to see that it is going away! thank god for ro water!

 

[aquaman67]

Wow,

Thanks for posting this. I'm going to subscribe to this thread.

The back wall, to the left, above the monti cap looks so much better!

 

[ILoveReefer]

Wow. Big improvement.
A little off topic but the tap water in boulder is very clean compared to Buffalo, NY tap water 203-220 TDS.

 

[es1887]

thanks for the replies! it is pretty funny though cause before i started using ro water my xenias were getting a little out of control. then once i started to use it there were slowly melting away. i thought to myself "finally a way to control these little weeds." now it has been four months and they have recovered and are actually growing faster and look much healthier, oh well so much for them dying off.
ILoveReefer, the tap water here is actually pretty clean and tastes great too, but six years of using it will deposit a lot of metals and other contaminants that will not "evaporate" out. i finally figured out the big algae bloom of 03,04,05,06,07, and 08 that my tank was experiencing.

 

[ILoveReefer]

I'm definitely would not recommend using tap water no matter where you live. Use RO or better yet RO/DI. 45-50 tds is still way to high but thats alot better than my 203-220 tds tap water. My tap water tastes a little unpleasant.