water questions

[zchauvin]

Hey guys I got a water report on the water near my house about a week ago and they said my hardness is 85 and ph 7.2-7.4. My tds meter reads 480 ppm. As of now I have had to take a break from the big tank but do plan on starting again once I get a hold of this college thing. I plan on keeping wild discus and altum angels. We have a water softener but do not use it at the momen. I don't really have any place to store water in so I can't use an ro/di system but my questions are....

1. Can you use a ro/di without storing it first.. say straight from the unit to tank. I'm pretty sure I know the answer but just making sure so sorry if its an ignorant question.

2. Would using the water softener replace having to use a ro/di unit? I don't know if it would do much for ph but I'm pretty sure it would get it into the mid/lower 6's and I know it would drop total hardness and tds a bunch. It would be much easier for me to go this method. Also I would probably add a bag of peat to my canister filters to help some more.

Any thoughts would be nice as I would love to know I'm doing better than tap for my wilds.
Thanks in advance

[jimg]

ro can be used right away, but it just drips/trickles out best to get something with a float valve to let it accumulate.
most water softners exchange ions with salt not good.
peat in canisters will only help if you hardly do wc's and when you do do a wc the tds will be much higher than the water that sat in the tank.
best imo to get some type of storage that you can change at least 50% of the water in your tanks every few days to a week depending on how high your nitrates get and ph drops.

[Discus Origins]

Agree with Jim on water softener, doesn't work in terms of what we want for fish. As for peat, if you are going with RO/DI that will do more to lower ph and soften water faster than peat. If you want to add tannins products like blackwater expert will do without as much mess.

[zchauvin]

Nah I dont really need the tannins and all, I'm not looking into anything for that reason. I just want to get soft acidic water but have no place to put a brute can and a ro/di unit... My tank would be in my bedroom and my parents would far from accept a ro unit hooked to a sink or wall muchless me having a 55 gallon trashcan somewheres too. Not to mention the fact that I have carpet floors so it would be damn near impossible to roll a can into my room lol. I guess I'll just use tap, or wait.

[k7prz]

I have 7 juv. discus in a 55 gal. I'm anticipating needing some softer water that what's coming from my well.
I live in the Pacific Northwest where it will start raining soon---just about every day for 6 months.
I'm looking for food quality plastic tarps I can collect rain water in. Any ideas as to where or what to get?

Dave

[KathyRRozier]

hy choose an RO + DI system

The RO + DI system can produce water of better quality, lower cost, without the integrated systems in reverse osmosis pretreatment. This water purification system is ideal for laboratory applications where the current central RO, DI or distillation system before treatment is reliable or not, overloaded (with respect to capacity), or do not exist in a particular location.It is also suitable for applications where space or funding limitations prevent the purchase RO systems separately and Type I DI.

The part of RO system with fully automatic operation. It includes an activated carbon pre-filter, product and reject flow meters, one or two TFC (thin film composite) high-capacity cartridges OI, and an external 30, 42, 130 or 200 liters of capacity to store water pressure RO purified for later use by the system ID. Type I DI part of the system has a high purity TOC reduction and polished DI module, continuous recirculation, a digital monitor resistivity meets the specifications of USP 29, a dispenser of distance and a 0, 1 micron (absolute) final filter capsule.

[TURQ64]

This reads like a for sale ad from Canada or somesuch..But I'm a sucker for some stuff, so I'll bite...1 micron sediment filters are prone to plugging on a regular basis, depending on source water....a bit hard to read due to the incorrect english.