RO or Distilled

[Sir Tristen]

Hello all,

I'm looking at quite a high ph (8) for a somewhat South American style tank, and I was just wondering about using distilled water. I know it's not quite as pure as RO water, but I dont' know where to buy RO water. I was thinking of doing half RO/distilled and half tap water for the trace elements to hopefully lower my ph a bit. My tank is only a 20 long, so I don't need too much, but where do I buy RO and how much is it?

[labnjab]

You can buy Ro at the culligan dispensor at walmart for around 33 cents a gallon, but usually is has a PH of 6, but I wouldn't recomend RO for freshwater, its too pure

[Sir Tristen]

What would you recommend? Is distilled okay, or should I just deal with the 8.0 ph?

[labnjab]

Distilled is probably gonna be too pure also. Experts correct me if I'm wrong, but I would think as long as your ph is consistant and you get fish that are not ph sensitive, you should be fine. I have a low ph (6) and all of my fish are doing great

[Sir Tristen]

Hmmm. I want corys (pepper or panda if I can find them) and cardinal tetras primarily. I was concerned that they were a bit ph sensitive, but I could be wrong.

[BigMac]

If your LFS PH is the same as yours do not worry so much.

I just went through this. My PH is 8+. It is stable and my fish a very happy. I have loaches, cory (pepper and panda looking) neon and angels.

If you use RO you will have to add buffers and trace elements back into the water for good fish health.
The best advice I got was get some practice manageing the tank with the water you have before you add complication. I should have listned ;)

[Sir Tristen]

I'd thought about mixing 50/50 or 25 ro/75 tap, but it seems like that's just an overall bad idea, so I might just get the peppers and cardinals and see how it goes. Hmmm. . .

[BigMac]

It will be fine. As long as it is stable..