R.O Filtration

[krazypara3165]

All very valid cm

 

[Ady34]

Why allow your beloved fish or shrimp to merely survive, when you could allow them to thrive?

That is the question.

.....strong statement Nath, most likely for most down to affordability or simply not the need to use RO. Most fish are hugely adaptable and many species thrive in tap water of all chemistries. More sensitive species will benefit from matching more closely their natural waters, but that's then down to researching your purchase, or choosing species suited to your tanks/local authority water. I think for most simply implementing good tank husbandry is more important in keeping healthy fish.
RO is an extension of the hobby much like co2, which is considered by some but not all. I think saying that your fish/shrimp merely survive in non RO water is a bit ott....some species may require it, but most do not and then it's down to the hobbyist and retailers to ensure the correct fauna is put into our tanks.
Cheerio,
Ady

 

[Nathaniel Whiteside]

Why allow your beloved fish or shrimp to merely survive, when you could allow them to thrive?

That is the question.

.....strong statement Nath, most likely for most down to affordability or simply not the need to use RO. Most fish are hugely adaptable and many species thrive in tap water of all chemistries. More sensitive species will benefit from matching more closely their natural waters, but that's then down to researching your purchase, or choosing species suited to your tanks/local authority water. I think for most simply implementing good tank husbandry is more important in keeping healthy fish.
RO is an extension of the hobby much like co2, which is considered by some but not all. I think saying that your fish/shrimp merely survive in non RO water is a bit ott....some species may require it, but most do not and then it's down to the hobbyist and retailers to ensure the correct fauna is put into our tanks.
Cheerio,
Ady

Hey mate,
It's not merely a claim about Fauna. If I used my regular tap water, my CRS would not be anywhere near as happy as they are currently.

You have a luxury in that your tap water is around 80 TDS straight out the tap, so you do not require an RO unit whatsoever. Which is bliss. But my tap readings can come out between 250-300. Which in terms of breeding CRS doesn't work.

I was speaking very specifically, in a sense as my tap water doesn't suit my needs. And that's having happy, breeding CRS.

Cheers,

 

[Nathaniel Whiteside]

You can even see then smiling

 

[foxfish]

Why allow your beloved fish or shrimp to merely survive, when you could allow them to thrive?

That is the question.

Well I dont know the answer to that but, you certainly dont need RO water to achieve that!
Adding or using a trickle tower might be the answer you are looking for

 

[Ady34]

Hey mate,
It's not merely a claim about Fauna. If I used my regular tap water, my CRS would not be anywhere near as happy as they are currently.

You have a luxury in that your tap water is around 80 TDS straight out the tap, so you do not require an RO unit whatsoever. Which is bliss. But my tap readings can come out between 250-300. Which in terms of breeding CRS doesn't work.

I was speaking very specifically, in a sense as my tap water doesn't suit my needs. And that's having happy, breeding CRS.

Cheers,

Yeah I appreciate this, for those who want more sensitive species its a no brainer when tap doesn't suit. For others they choose species which will live happily in their tap water perameters

 

[Antipofish]

Fish keepers have been using RO units for as long as I can remember, I was selling the Purity on Tap range 30 years ago so certainly nothing new there!
The problems I have with using them revolves around the extremely high amount of waste water they produce, the high maintenance, the really slow production of the desired pure water & the cost of a decent sized unit!
I don't have a problem with this. As already stated, our domestic water consumption for aquariums is negligible to the billions of gallons of water used in industry, or even compared to the massive waste allowed to occur by water supply companies who do nothing about the endless leaks on the mains supply.

You really need a decent sized carbon pre filter as well & you really need very good mains water pressure.
A booster pump can make all the difference to the ROs performance & reduce the waste considerably but again more maintenance & hassle.
Most domestic pressure is suitable, but as you say a booster pump will help and they are not that expensive.

The small pores in the membrane of a reverse osmosis plant cannot block dangerous chemicals like pesticides, herbicides, and chlorine!
So in order to remove them a carbon filter has to be used & regularly maintained.
Another disadvantage of reverse osmosis is that it ends up removing the healthy, naturally occurring minerals meaning you need to add minerals back to the pure water!
In comparison to the other water treatment options, reverse osmosis is a very slow option but it does produce very pure water - especially if used with a large carbon filter & booster pump.
Finely ... how do you know if the filter is working at it best potential?
How can you accurately test the outflow to check the unit is doing its job without taking a sample to a test lab?
Performance would be pretty much guaranteed when new but, even units fitted with a flow meter & by using the manufacturer guideline about changing the Carbon & RO membrane wont guarantee the purity of the outflow after a certain amount of use?

Every type of filter diminishes in effectiveness as time passes by. It doesn't mean we should not use them though, just that like everything else, we must maintain them accordingly. You can test TDS with a TDS pen that costs £15.

Having said all of that I would still advise RO water for certain applications especially in reef keeping & breeding certain fish.
They are part of our hobby, everyone should try one out but I doubt many will keep up their prolonged use unless you are very dedicated!

 

[Nathaniel Whiteside]

I think we're all pretty much agreed on the benefits when linking livestock to bad tap parameters.

Why are we having this discussion again ?

An RO will offer you a management to bad conditions, if its soft out the tap, then you don't need one!

 

[NatureBoy]

It's great to read people's views on this.

I think everyone's agreed that looking for alternatives to tapwater is totally valid when your local parameters don't suit your specific needs.

RO units should come under the hosepipe ban regulations....

 

[Nathaniel Whiteside]

RO units should come under the hosepipe ban regulations....

I'd ninja it.

 

[krazypara3165]

ive been keeping tabs on this with interest! and whitey, your shrimp look very happy indeed! my original argument was in respect to the amount of high nitrates in my tap water......aside from them my tap water is very good, around 4-6 gh and kh and is near enough identical in tap water to my breeders, in fact he breeds his discus in tap water! (altho he did say he occasionally uses a hma filter for breeding) and he has the highest quality discus i have ever seen which is not surprising seeing as he is one of the most respected discus breeders in the u.k. Since starting the post and seeing that my tank is very well planted i have realized that i can reduce the amount of nitrates i dose and i am currently working on a mixture that will balance between the fish and the plants although because i will be doing regular water changes with my high nitrate tap water i might be able to reduce the amount i dose further. But thats another story and i am in the trial and error phase atm.

As it has been stated many a time its down to everyones tap water to start of with, in my case i could of gone out and bought one only to remineralise to the same hardness i have now and to add nitrates for my plants as they need them anyway when there was a good alternative solution. granted, i admit i will be taking a huge chance on unknown water parameters (nasties that the water company puts in) and there is the potential for variations of consistency but a good regime with testing will keep on top of that.

 

[Antipofish]

RO units should come under the hosepipe ban regulations....

Don''t you think that would be a bit disastrous ?? All of a sudden you go from keeping your fish in tip top water to keeping them in parameters totally different to what they are used to ? For marine tanks it could wipe them out, and most fish would not be happy. I don't think you have thought that through. People might lose £1000's worth of fish and livestock.

 

[NatureBoy]

RO units should come under the hosepipe ban regulations....

Don''t you think that would be a bit disastrous ?? All of a sudden you go from keeping your fish in tip top water to keeping them in parameters totally different to what they are used to ? For marine tanks it could wipe them out, and most fish would not be happy. I don't think you have thought that through. People might lose £1000's worth of fish and livestock.

It's a contentious point, but perhaps it needs to be made, particularly when weighing up the choice to go with RO. I like Darrel's approach - a massive storage of rainwater. Gardeners face the same worries I'm sure with the plants they may lose in their gardens should a hose pipe ban be enforced. I've thought it through enough to have made my mind up to never keep marine, or buy an RO unit but to live within the parameters that come out the tap.

 

[Nathaniel Whiteside]

Your still allowed to water your plants with a hosepipe ban in force.. Just you have to 'fill a watering can' rather than leave sprinklers on. So it isn't really that relative, as you can still use as much water as you please, just break your back doing it!

Once water becomes a luxury, were all F*cked.

 

[NatureBoy]

Definitely an "each to their own" kind of choice, of which there are many in this hobby, and not one to get too flustered about...

 

[Antipofish]

RO units should come under the hosepipe ban regulations....

Don''t you think that would be a bit disastrous ?? All of a sudden you go from keeping your fish in tip top water to keeping them in parameters totally different to what they are used to ? For marine tanks it could wipe them out, and most fish would not be happy. I don't think you have thought that through. People might lose £1000's worth of fish and livestock.

It's a contentious point, but perhaps it needs to be made, particularly when weighing up the choice to go with RO. I like Darrel's approach - a massive storage of rainwater. Gardeners face the same worries I'm sure with the plants they may lose in their gardens should a hose pipe ban be enforced. I've thought it through enough to have made my mind up to never keep marine, or buy an RO unit but to live within the parameters that come out the tap.

Your choice is commendable, especially if you choose fish that match those parameters as well. I'm not convinced that because you have chosen that path, that you should feel it acceptable to impose the same on others, or actually worse, since others might be using RO already and then they have water parameters enforced upon them by a "hosepipe ban". Apart from anything else such a notion would be unenforceable. I am also not convinced that you can compare plantlife to living fish either. Thats a rather odd comparison. Unless its all about money. But for me the lives of the fish would be the key factor here. Not everyone has the capacity for storing the amount of rainwater as Darrell either. Others live in a part of the country where even with 1000L of storage, the weather would not provide enough rainfall. Darrell has said himself that sometimes its a problem for him I recall.

And as I have said more than once on this thread, how can we compare domestic water usage to the billions of litres used by industry ? Would my 30 cubic metres of water (that I have paid for I hasten to add) REALLY affect the environment ? NO. So I'm sorry, the "I'm trying to save the planet by not using an RO to filter my fish water" argument is not one that holds much store with me. Not when the water companies themselves allow wastage of TOTAL water consumption of amounts up to 30% to go on.

I would also point out that when the hosepipe ban was in place I was forced to wash my car with buckets of water and rinse it off the same way. This actually used MORE water than had I been able to spray it off to rinse it !

 

[geoffbark]

Very well said.

And I would like to stress again. An RO system used correctly can save water.

Direct that waste water for the garden, washing car, hosing the dog down after a muddy walk. Etc etc etc.

 

[Clifford]

If you have a decent sized tank you'd need truly epic amounts of storage.

Considering the size of the OP's tank and assuming "standard" 50% weekly changes and an optimistic 5:1 rejection rate he'd need to find storage for over 700l a week.

If you had that much storage you'd be better off harvesting rainwater.

I'm by no means anti RO but unless you're running a Nano or a commercial car wash you are putting an awful lot of clean, fresh water straight down the drain.

 

[Antipofish]

If you have a decent sized tank you'd need truly epic amounts of storage.

Considering the size of the OP's tank and assuming "standard" 50% weekly changes and an optimistic 5:1 rejection rate he'd need to find storage for over 700l a week.

If you had that much storage you'd be better off harvesting rainwater.

I'm by no means anti RO but unless you're running a Nano or a commercial car wash you are putting an awful lot of clean, fresh water straight down the drain.

Read the post above you. It need not go down the drain. And from your post it seems you think the OP needs to store 700L of RO water each week. Is that correct or did I misread what you said ?

 

[krazypara3165]

I think what he was trying to say is.that if I have a 300l tank and im doing 50% change a week (the case is actually 3 x 50%) I would need an awful lot of storage to save the waste water.