RO UNITS

Hi i would like to set up an ro unit to bring the ph down in my tank as my tap water is just bad . any advice on products you recomend and setups you have done. and bare in mind i dont realy know how they work. i know they are basicly a filler with holes only a few mirons wide but thats about it

granted i have never used one but i have looked into them as the tap water here in adelaide is shocking, so bad that international ships wont refill their tanks here unless they really need to!!!!

RO means reverse osmosis. As a quick recap, osmosis is the process of water crossing a semi-permiable membrane. Normally water will move in the direction of the more concentrated salt, in order to dilute it. The difference in salt concentrations on each side of the membrane determines the osmotic pressure, basically how fast the water will move across the membrane. Reverse osmosis is where you force water through a membrane by overcoming the osmotic pressure with real, physical pressure...i.e. the pressure from the tap

in this case you get water moving from high salt concnetration to low salt concentration, or being cleaned or purified. The sacle that this is done on can vary, it is a common thing these days to have a water purifier in the house, these are very low scale and only remove a small amount of disolved stuff. the largest scale i know of is the water supply for some of the middle east countires who use reverse osmosis to purify seawater, same thing they are now doing here in adelaide but they are doing it all wrong and about to create an environmnetal disaster, man i have australias water policies!!!

Now, in terms of RO units for a fish tank. The simple rule is, unfortuantly, you pay for what you get. THe more cash you spend, the better the water will be at the end. That said, you do nned to think about what the end goal is. For example, If i was to attempt to breed discus here i would need a hardcore RO unit as the tap water is pH 7.5 and hard as a 70 year old tuna fisherman. To get the levels down to that of the amazon for daily water changes i would be running the poor filters as hard as they can go. However, if the goal is just to get the pH down a bit and not do daily water changes then you dont need such a hardcore system.

I would be looking at a simple setup, something like a single filter with say a rating off 50GL with a salt reduction of say 96% (about average). A unit like this here is Aus is about $100-$150.

All that siad, these are for the units that run from the tap for refilling the tank. I have seen people set them up so that they filter the tank water, never have to do a water change again kind of thing. These systems are much more complicated as they need pumps and regulators and all sorts and are def overkill for what you need. these setups are used by discus breeders etc who need the soft, low pH water.

Also, one final thing to remember is that these things run on pressure, if you have poor water pressure in you area then you may need a booster pump for it, or want to run it at a higher temp (as this also boosts flow rate)

hope that helps

that is very helpfull thanks

whats youre ph from the tap?
theirs a few ways of bringing the ph down without going out and buying ro units.
a mate of mine breeds dwarf cichlids and he as a 45 gallon drum with a tap at the bottom he half fills with dead oak wood and leaves bogwood and almond leaves.
he puts these in to nets you hang at youre windows and raps them up. then he just fills the barrell up from the tap leaves it for a few days with a air stone running 24/7 and then just takes what he needs and mixes it with normall tap water in a five gallon drum and gets the lower ph he wants.
i know it sounds like a lot of messing about but once its all set up and you know how much to mix together its simple and costs next to nothing.

its 8.5

8.5

holy hell! and i thought Adelaide's was bad!

ph 8.5 wish i had that water you need to keep malawis mate lol.

lol wana house swap