Daily Water Changes

[kebanos7cs]

So, my last post got me thinking of another question about water changes. Here is what I currently work with on my tank:

I do water changes daily on my tank with 100% RO water. (No straight tap water added) My RO water is in a holding tank with a heater and air stone. Once I have enough I do a 50% or more water change on the discus tank. I add to each water jug the following: "Discus Essential" "Black Water Expert" "RO Right" and "Auqarium Salt" each at the reccomended amounts on the label of course.

Now since I'm taking the water out of the tank everyday, I am assuming I am also taking out the added products (Discus Essential, Black Water Expert... etc) and I need to replenish the added products along with the RO water.

So when you guys make daily water changes, do you add your products back in everytime? Am I wasting it? Hell.. do I even need all these chemicals added to the water? What do you guys add to your RO water? Do you just take out the old water and replace with JUST RO water and add the extra products once a week/bi-weekly?

[Polar_Bear]

First off, I have no clue why you are adding aquarium salt, it certainly isn't helping anything. Yes you would need to replenish the other things you removed at the rate that you removed them (If you did a 50% water change you would need to add back 50% of the minerals you had added originally).

I use none of those things when adding RO water, I simply add some tap water (my tap is 150 TDS) when doing a water change. The amount of tap water that I use is wholly dependant on what I am trying to acheive. If its for my wilds I do a 75% RO to 25% tap water, this gives me water with a pH of 6.2 and a uS of 40. For breeders I use a 50/50 percentage. For grow outs I use straight tap water.

[kebanos7cs]

When I get home.. I'm going to test the RO water and post up the water parameters. My tap water is the following:

Nitrite - 0 ppm (mg/L)
Nitrate - 20 ppm (mg/L)
Hardness - 300 (GH) ppm
Alkalinity - 300 (KH) ppm
pH - 8.4

I'm guessing that since the tap water is so much opposite of what I want (and also what I believe is coming out of my RO unit) that its gonna be a 75% RO water - 25% Tap) if I were to mix the two together.

So are you saying that mixing tap water in with the RO water should take the place of the Discus Essential, Black Water Expert, RO Right? Or it might?

Hey, I am one that would prefer "Less or no chemicals used the better" I actually stopped adding Discus buffer because I found out that the pH level coming out of the RO unit is already at the right level.

[Polar_Bear]

I suggest that you take a 5 gallon bucket, try 50/50 RO/Tap and see what you get. Simply adjust the amount of tap to RO until you get the pH that you want, then use whatever that amount is to do your water changes. I agree that adding chemicals is not the way to go if you can avoid it.

[Graham]

I agree with P_B...stop wasting $$ on the additives..mix the RO and the tap to get what you would like

G

[kebanos7cs]

Sounds great!!!

But I just want to ask straight out and know for sure that this is what it means.

When I add the tap water to my RO water... that is the SAME THING as adding these man-made chemical products? Simply put, the added tap water takes the place of the chemicals, right?

If thats the case, I totally agree, I'll go with the RO water and add the appropiate amount of tap water until I get the desired pH level.

[Don Trinko]

RO water has almost nothing disolved in it. You need to add the essential minerals. ( witch are probably in your tap water) Pure ro also has the disadvantage that there is no buffering agents in it. This can lead to large PH swings and that is hard on the fish.
The only reason not to mix with tap water would be if there is something toxic in your tap water. We have a freind who has toxic tap water (to the fish) She gets her tap water from her husbands office. Don T.

[kebanos7cs]

Toxic tap water (toxic just to the fish) meaning that the tap water contains ammonia or chlorine, right?

If I test for these and find there are none present, I should be safe to add the tap water to the RO water, correct?

[White Worm]

Yes, however...contact your local water company and ask them what they use. Even if there is nothing now, you never know what they could add at a later date. I would always use some kind of conditioner no matter how the tap water tests come out just to be safe. Just use 1/2 RO and half tap with conditioner and check pH, gH and kH. You can adjust from there. No need for all the other stuff at this point. If you test your mixture (aerate and store for 24 hours) and there is no large change, you should be fine. You may have to add more RO to keep hardness down.

[Don Trinko]

Our freind who has water that is toxic to the fish has some kind of water softener that puts something in the water that kills the fish. She contacted the company and they agreed that the water from their softener was toxic to fish but not to humans. It is not clorine or cloramines. Don T.

[Seecher]

I do (50%) water changes daily on my tank ....

Why do you do that?