R/O Water

[Sandy W]

I tried this on the beginner thread, but so far no help. We put in a R/O unit with 30gal storage when we found copper in our well water. Our first major water change killed all the fish.
We recently tried filling a 10gal tank before going to an auction. The water had small bubbles (like carbonation), so we added an air pump and let it run 24 hours before adding anything. The shrimp we added died almost instantly, while those added to our other tank remain fine.
Water parameters (pH, hardness, nitrates, nitrites) remain fine.
Does any one have any suggestions? I am still playing with tetras since I don't want to invest in discus until we figure this out.
HELP!!!!

Sandy:confused:

[Tropical Haven]

Sandy,
If you are using straight RO water you will kill everything that you put into your tank. The RO water needs trace elements in it for fish to survive. Some people put in a certain amount of tap water to achive this and if you are worried about all the copper in your water then you can add Trace elements from a tub or can from Dr Foster & Smith to your RO water.

[koty]

Regular "household" R/O water are not as pure as laboratory double distilled water. So to my opinion it is unlikely to say that they will kill fish so efficiently. However, I would think that your R/O water might be extracting (leaching) some metal on the way to your aquarium. If this is the case, filtering through peat might take care of that.

[Sandy W]

I should have mentioned that we are adding sea salt to one tank and a product for R/O water to the lower pH tank. I am very concerned about the bubbles and possibility of dissolved CO2 although I can't figure out where it might have originated.
Sandy

[Graham]

1st off well water has very low O2 levels and high CO2 levels (result low pH) and this could kill fish very easily if the water change was large enough.

As far as the copper killing all your fish, I doubt it. At least it did not do it quickly. Yes, if you have soft water and zinc also in the water copper becomes very toxic. It would lower the heamoglobin in the blood resulting in the fish slowly suffocating, since it wouldn't be able to get enough O2.

Then the kidneys would be trying to filter it out and would be slowly destroyed. This would result in dropsy in fish since they wouldn't be able to get rid of fluids.

Both these take time. Copper is used as a med for fish so they can withstand certain levels

If you can drink this water with out any ill affects then the fish probably should be fine.

The bubbles forming on the glass are just CO2 mainly and don't harm anything.

Whats the water storage unit made out of?
Whats the pH of the water?
Why are you adding sea salt?

[Sandy W]

The copper slowly killed my fresh water ray. We had an increase in copper (measured at .8ppm from the tap at the height of the rains) when we were hit by heavy rains. To avoid copper we went to R/O system for the tanks, and filtered water for our coffee (since boiling concentrates copper).
The water is pH around 6.5-6.6 coming out of the filter. We have very soft water so are adding sea salt to our guppy tank to increase pH and hardness. The eventually discus tank is getting nutrients from a bottle since I want to keep the lower pH.
The water storage unit is a standard drinking water tank from home depot. It is brand new and should not be leaching anything at this point.
Thanks for any and all help!
Sandy