Rain water for top off and mixture?!

[Homer]

Hello... My tank (90 gallon, is still far away from my home), planned delivery 26th of December, but I don`t want to make mistakes I have done with my current nano tank, so I do a lot more research and planning now....

I read articles about rain water and of course, people are arguing and arguing ...


I could imagine, that rain water collected in New York, is pretty bad , to say the least... But How about here, In Europe, where we do not have acid rains ? I live in Amsterdam, and yes, it rains every day :) ... I could collect the rain straight from sky without letting the rain touch roof or pipelines, because I have balcony with open sky view...

Currently I am using tap water (without RO filter system), well I have been using it for more than a year ... I don`t know why... But I have.... The water is chemical free, because it is this city law and we pay extra money to get it extra filtrated etc...But still, probably it would be best if I used RO, so for my 90 gallon, of course I will have RO system... but till the 26th of December... Could I use rain water?

OK, what are Your thoughts (what do you think?- didn`t know how to spell that correctly) about using rain water for marine aquariums, if it does not get in contact with other elements and is not filtrated? in other words -straight from sky in to aquarium :)

Ok,damn, that was a long description...



Ok, tnx for your opinions :)

 

[Northstar24]

I highly doubt the rain water is clean enough to use for marine aquria, you'd still have to run it through some sort of filtration system

 

[texreefer]

RO/DI clouds ? :mrgreen:

 

[TBrewerton]

The thing with rain water is it picks up anything in the air on the way down... I had the same thought for here in clean green old New Zealand, but then had a thought about all the farming chemicals - they constantly treat paddocks with lime and other minerals for fertilisation and a portion of that goes air borne and can end up in the "clean" rain water... Same with car exhaust fumes factory waste etc etc... Just think what is around your area that could cause pollution and then think weather those things would be ok in your tank :-)

 

[poksal]

Agreed but:

I did channel my roof rain water into my koi pond. I used tap water for ATO and let the roof water perform my "automatic" water changes. The biggest problem was the raccoons kept stealing my koi. Then one week while we were gone the raccoons fooled with my ATO and it stayed on and the chlorine killed all the koi. That finally ended my koi adventure.

 

[AllReady]

I remember reading a story that was making it's way around the internet a few months back about the dust kicked up in the Sahara drifting across the Atlantic and fertilizing the Amazon when it rained back down. Point being, even outside of human activity, who knows what's in the water coming down. Sure it may not be toxic or poisonous or whatever, but in a reef tank where controlling nutrients and the exact levels of so many substances is vital, why take a chance?

 

[poksal]

You must also consider that some cities spray for mosquitos sometimes to control illnesses they carry, such as West Nile.

Powdered fertilizers, and insecticides from neighbors get blown onto your roof. Crop dusting products are caught up and carried. Aircraft expel unused fuel before making emergency landings, and then there is the acid effect of burning organic fuels all being filtered and pulled out of the air by rain.

 

[Bifferwine]

Rain water is not a clean source of water. It will pick up the particles from car exhaust on its way down. It will pick up the contents of smoke stacks on its way down. It can be more acidic than "normal" water.

 

[bjohanson1234]

Don't forget the dust from volcanic activities. You aren't too far from Ice Land. Not to long back, there was a volcano that shut down air ports in many European countries.