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Evaporation and chemistry.


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Hey everyone, so.. getting hit with that re-learning curve here.

 

Evaporation doesn't take out minerals, just water. Therefore, if I top off the tank with tap water, I would drive TDS up. It should also drive TDS levels up if I let too much water evaporate...

 

RO water is the solution here, correct? 

What's the difference between RO and distilled water?

 

Love these growing pains.

 

My 29 gallon tank is down about 2.5 inches, almost 3.

It looks like someone's getting berried tonight though, so I don't want to screw with everything and lose eggs.

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  • 3 weeks later...

the difference between RO water and distilled water  is, RO water passes through a membrane under pressure. Salts or solids are extracted. Distilled water is water that is heated, turned to steam and reconstituted back to water as it cools void of any salts or solids

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15 hours ago, trong said:

the difference between RO water and distilled water  is, RO water passes through a membrane under pressure. Salts or solids are extracted. Distilled water is water that is heated, turned to steam and reconstituted back to water as it cools void of any salts or solids

 

Yes you are correct.

for the purposes of our hobby they are interchangeable.

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6 hours ago, chappy6107 said:

 

Yes you are correct.

for the purposes of our hobby they are interchangeable.

 

The only problem with distilled water is that the stuff you buy from the store often will have TDS levels of 20+ and a pH somewhere between 6 and 8. True distilled water works great but the store stuff is highly variable.

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26 minutes ago, WalterJay said:

 

The only problem with distilled water is that the stuff you buy from the store often will have TDS levels of 20+ and a pH somewhere between 6 and 8. True distilled water works great but the store stuff is highly variable.

 

I have always had 0 tds.  I dont worry about the ph as after I remineralize it, it is always where I need it to be.

call it lucky, plus ever since I put together an RO/DI filter I have not had to buy any more.

 

what ever you bought having a tds of 20+ was not true distilled water.  and it having a tds would vary the ph as well.

 

either way it is still better than the variability of tap water.

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34 minutes ago, chappy6107 said:

 

I have always had 0 tds.  I dont worry about the ph as after I remineralize it, it is always where I need it to be.

call it lucky, plus ever since I put together an RO/DI filter I have not had to buy any more.

 

what ever you bought having a tds of 20+ was not true distilled water.  and it having a tds would vary the ph as well.

 

either way it is still better than the variability of tap water.

I'll try to find the article but someone measured 6 different brands and each had different levels of TDS and pH (which I agree doesn't really matter) despite all being labeled distilled. Think it was in a Von's or something.

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45 minutes ago, WalterJay said:

I'll try to find the article but someone measured 6 different brands and each had different levels of TDS and pH (which I agree doesn't really matter) despite all being labeled distilled. Think it was in a Von's or something.

 

interesting.  hopefully since the tds is only ~20 it wouldnt make too big of an impact on something like Taiwan bees or the other caridinas.

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18 hours ago, chappy6107 said:

 

interesting.  hopefully since the tds is only ~20 it wouldnt make too big of an impact on something like Taiwan bees or the other caridinas.

I'm with you, I don't change my RO filters until they're 20+ anyway. Any shrimp that can't handle a +/- 10 TDS doesn't belong in my tanks :)

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