Differences in water

[KelliZackMOM]

I'm getting ready to do a 50% water change to try and get my Nitrates down so I stopped at the store to buy bottled water.
I know most of you have RO units, but for those who buy bottled, what kind do you buy? Distilled or drinking? I didn't even know there was a difference, but the bottles they had at Wal-Mart said distilled made by vaporization and drinking made by reverse osmosis. I bought the drinking.
Does anyone use spring water? My Petco here locally told me it would be fine, but I'm beginning to think I know more than they do based on some of the answers I get from them at times. We have a natural fed spring here in town so it would be free water, but I'm not so sure I want to take that chance without hearing from someone who has did it and didn't end up with stuff in their tank that shouldn't be there.

 

[bjohanson1234]

I would use the distilled. Drinking water tends to have minerals added to enhance the flavor. Also spring water tends to be higher in mineral content.

In a pinch, I have run to the store and gotten distilled water.

 

[KelliZackMOM]

Well this is hopefully the only time I will have to buy bottled water. I'll be ordering my RO unit tomorrow, I wanted to start working on getting these nitrates down ASAP. I have been using dechlorinated tap water up until now and since I finally got things going in the right direction I want to keep it that way.

 

[FishyReef]

I've occasionally added distilled to top off my sump if its running low and I don't have any fresh water made up. Given that you are still in the early stages, you'll be fine having used what you did and switching over to RO once you get your unit. And I think you'll be happy when your RO unit arrives! Are you going to permanently attach it to a water hook-up, or just attach it to your sink when you need to make water?

As for the nitrates - do you have a sump, or are you going sumpless? If you have a sump, you can pick up some chaetomorpha macro algae at your LFS (though not sure petco will have it) and throw it in your sump with a regular light bulb on it and decent flow - that should help reduce your nitrate levels.

 

[sen5241b]

I use distilled.

 

[KelliZackMOM]

I've occasionally added distilled to top off my sump if its running low and I don't have any fresh water made up. Given that you are still in the early stages, you'll be fine having used what you did and switching over to RO once you get your unit. And I think you'll be happy when your RO unit arrives! Are you going to permanently attach it to a water hook-up, or just attach it to your sink when you need to make water?

As for the nitrates - do you have a sump, or are you going sumpless? If you have a sump, you can pick up some chaetomorpha macro algae at your LFS (though not sure petco will have it) and throw it in your sump with a regular light bulb on it and decent flow - that should help reduce your nitrate levels.

The RO unit I am going to get says it is portable, but I am going to permanently attach it to kitchen sink hopefully. It only is suppose to be able to make 100gal/day, but that will be fine for what I need. The adaptor you can get for it allows you to get tap or RO water from your faucet. It's another one of my Ebay deals I found.
I am sumpless and probably will stay that way at least with this tank. I'm still learning how this all works and a sump seems kind of overwhelming to me right now.