RO/DI Water?

[missyjre]

I have a saltwater fishtank and have an RO/DI filter system for my water that goes in the tank. I Drink the water as well and just take a vitamin supplement to make up for the things stripped from the water. I buy Distilled water to use for my chins and was curious about using the RO/DI water instead. Is there anything in water that the Chins actually need aside from the water itself?

 

[Isabella Whateva]

I don't know anything about RO/DI water, but I do know most owners don't recommend distilled water. The thing in tapwater that's dangerous to chins are microbial cysts. Certain water filters will filter this out (PUR does, Brita does not)

Microbial cysts can make human very sick, and can EASILY kill a chin or even a larger animal like a cat or dog.

 

[missyjre]

I've read through all my stuff on my system several times. It says that the 0.5 micron carbon block filter removes trihalomethanes, pesticides, volatile organic chemicals and 99.95% of giardia and cryptosporidium cysts. Which I think covers what is important to remove. I was just curios about the removal of all the other mineral and stuff. Are they getting all of their nutrition from the food. Or are there things that they get from water as well.

 

[missyjre]

I'm also curious why the distilled water isn't okay? I figured it would me much safer than any store bought filtered water would be. I just assumed that the distilling process would rid it of any bacteria and so on.

 

[Stackie]

Distilling water also removes essential minerals that are good for you. I use a PUR filter.

Edit: Or am I thinking of deionized water? I don't remember. Regardless, I still use a PUR filter. )

 

[AZChins]

I wouldn't worry too much about minerals being obtained from the water being lessened. People and animals getting many thousands of times more necessary minerals from their food. The amount from the water is negligible. Reverse osmosis systems do retain some of the minerals in the water. Often times minerals are added to water to affect the taste and nothing else. So the mineral content can be a matter of personal preference as far as tastes go.

I have my chins on reverse osmosis water. I highly recommend it because it is a very safe method of removing a large range of contaminants from the water. The chins do well on it. Distilled water would be alright, but it requires much more energy to create it and it isn't necessary for the chins to have it.

 

[missyjre]

Thanks AZChins I was really hoping that the RO/DI water would be alright for my girls. I figured something that's Reefsafe would be okay for them as well. As small reef tanks are very sensitive to waterquality and I've had the Nanoreef running for quite a while on the RO/DI with terrific results. Just wanted to make sure they didn't need like something that would be stripped the reverse osmosis + Deionization pretty much sucks everything right out!

 

[GorillaJTA]

As far as DI vs RO water- RO water leaves minerals and ions that contribute to the "taste" of water. DI water tastes very strange if you have grown up on chlorinated or even bottled RO water. I filled up my personal water bottle from the lab's DI water tank once... It tasted so strange that I dumped it and found a water fountain.