Distilled water?

[beastium]

Good okay or bad? And why

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[Chiefmcfuz]

I use it all the time and have used it for years. No issues. I use Poland Spring FWIW.

 

[Euroreefer]

Its hit or miss in the supermarket buying distilled (Key food brand). I've gotten TDS readings from 5-8ppm in the Distilled recently.

 

[tomjof]

When I put the Poland spring jug in, i tried it once and I got a huge cyano bacteria bloom

 

[beastium]

I got AC. (America's choice...) I don't know if its because I added like a half gallon of water to my 3g gank or bc the water sux or other but my healthy sps is fading.

Im thinking of getting an only RO unit

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[Master Shake]

technically distiled water is ro water that goes through a uv sterilizer, the quality can be argued depending on brand and plastics used for packaging....learned that the other day in one of my science classes

 

[MatthewScars]

Cmon man, you can google such a simple question.

https://www.google.com/search?q=dis...ome.0.57j0l3.12276j0&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

Just buy an RODI. What a pain it must be to have to go outside and buy gallons of distilled water at a time. RODI is only like $150...

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

 

[MjG2000]

RO/DI is the way to go, some plastics have phosphates.

 

[vio]

technically distiled water is ro water that goes through a uv sterilizer, the quality can be argued depending on brand and plastics used for packaging....learned that the other day in one of my science classes

yes, also how long ? #1 stamp on recycle mean the Q. of plastic
#1 = cheap plastic up to........
#7 Best (like glass). that's the reason of $7 charge when buy 5 Gal. water from Lowe's store etc.

 

[bertyboy69]

Ive bought the generic brand at my supermarket and gotten a reading of 40 tds before so i would be careful with what you buy

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[beastium]

yes, also how long ? #1 stamp on recycle mean the Q. of plastic
#1 = cheap plastic up to........
#7 Best (like glass). that's the reason of $7 charge when buy 5 Gal. water from Lowe's store etc.

Very informative

Lol I tried googling but people would just go off on tangents so I came to the reef oracle

People say ro, di, and distillation are just diff ways to get tds down to zero but I think deionization is important for chemical reactions that need to occur in reef systems.

I guess im Trying to spend as little as possible and get immediate results


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[Will]

Distilled water is water that has many of its impurities removed through distillation. Distillation involves boiling the water and then condensing the steam into a clean container.
I've usually gotten 0 on my TDS meter with the distilled water I get..

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

I have used it for years. I will continue to use it. No problems here. For my needs it is cheaper and easier to purchase a gallon of Distilled water a week at the supermarket than purchase an rodi unit.

 

[beastium]

Yea i'm gona stick with it for my pico purposes and ill report any changes as a result keeping all other variables similar as possible. what supermarket do you go to? wish i knew how to collect gallons of steam myself.

so far disadvantages i recognize are possible phosphates and varying quality by store.

also can anyone comment on the importance of deionization?

 

[Jhoehlein]

For me it was a cost / benefit thing - I need 5 gallons of water a week for water changes and top off. That comes out to about $6 a week from Rite Aid. A refurbished Spectrapure 4 stage RO/DI is about $150 after shipping and faucet attachments. After a little over six months I'll start saving what it would still cost me to lug jugs.

That being said I never had any issues with distilled. FWIW I used "Crystal Lake" or whatever their odd store brand is because that's the only distilled water they had in stock. Just make sure that regardless of where you go or which brand you buy you actually get the distilled water and not accidentally grab the spring water by mistake.

Deionization helps capture the last few bits of ions remaining after pushing water through a micron, a carbon block, and a membrane. Water coming out of a 3 stage RO will still have some trace TDS; the DI drops that down to 0. In this hobby every little extra bit helps, and using 0 TDS RO/DI water goes a long way towards keeping your water clean, your corals happy, and your algae nonexistent.

 

[reefer4eva]

For the cost of buying water weekly(depending on how many gallons you use for a water change) as apposed to buying an ro/Di unit even with buying new filters for it would save you hundreds yearly.

 

[MatthewScars]

For the cost of buying water weekly(depending on how many gallons you use for a water change) as apposed to buying an ro/Di unit even with buying new filters for it would save you hundreds yearly.

Not to mention you need to walk/drive/subway to a place that sells the water and carry it back a gallon at a time. 5x 1 gallon jugs of water to be carried any distance is a pain in the ass.

Just buy an RODI. its $130 then filter replacements are like $30 every 4 months. Im sure you spend more than that in beer on the weekends.

 

[reefer4eva]

I get a little more than 4 months out of my filters ....i only do 5 gallon weekly changes(it's only a 34 gallon tank)