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Post by martin on Apr 4, 2007 17:54:19 GMT -5
Just out of curiosity...
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Post by lloyd on Apr 4, 2007 17:57:51 GMT -5
Martin, you didn't include dehumidifier water. It's available from spring till fall and I store it in two big plastic garbage pails over the winter. It's essentially distilled and free.
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Post by martin on Apr 4, 2007 18:13:22 GMT -5
Doesnt let me modify the poll once it started, I guess you can put dehumidifier water into the distilled category.
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Post by vraev on Apr 4, 2007 18:27:37 GMT -5
reverse osmosis all way baby!
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Post by jay on Apr 4, 2007 19:50:24 GMT -5
rain's free and comes in large amounts:)
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Post by Syble on Apr 4, 2007 20:00:13 GMT -5
I use mostly rain water, have a barn with a steel roof thats 160'+ long so we get quite a bit. Just during the frozen solid month or so when I couldn't get at any of it I used 3 X filtered tap water that stood 2 days.
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Post by sdeering on Apr 4, 2007 20:06:20 GMT -5
Rain first, then RO.
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Post by steve on Apr 5, 2007 11:02:10 GMT -5
Rain here as much as i can until rain barrel blew apart, last month store bought distilled
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Post by sdeering on Apr 5, 2007 11:09:47 GMT -5
Thats some dang dangerous rain man
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Post by mabudon on Apr 5, 2007 11:14:34 GMT -5
Good Ol Rain for me, as long as I am around when it happens- last year it rained so much and so hard that a few timesI had to empty my trays or suffer submerged plants- heck, once it rained so much that the whole "tray" (one of them rubbermaid totes) was full and everything in there was just floatin around in peaty soup, pots an all , like dumplings I am leery of our local tapwater- maybe Brian, Jay and/or Purpman has experience with it- I'm sure it would be okay after the sitting period, but I wouldn't want to use it on some stuff, nor very often on anything EDIT yeah Steve, I've heard of acid rain, but explosive rain, not so much
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Post by steve on Apr 5, 2007 11:19:38 GMT -5
ha ha should have seen that coming
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Post by Syble on Apr 5, 2007 14:07:28 GMT -5
sitting water out only lets the chlorine dissipate, possibly floriune also, but I'm brain dead right now. the problem with tap water is all the desolved mineral salts. It's that yellow crust you get on the surface of the pots. also gey yellow and black crusts on the moss tips if you top dress with sphagnum. Sib
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Post by brian on Apr 5, 2007 15:11:00 GMT -5
Sitting the tap water not only gets rid of the foul tasting chlorine, but also removes all the carcinogenic chloroform and other trihalomethanes that your municipality does not want you to know about. (Chlorine plus organics makes THMs, they are not in the raw water). Once you stand or use charcoal filters tap water not only tastes better but believe me is safer than bottled. Anecdote: I once tested sewage for a municipality and when they saw the chloroform result they said solvents were being discharged, which is illegal in any amount. I pointed out that the chloroform was the same concentration in the municipal tap water being used to supply the plant in the first place. Anyway Syble is correct that standing tap water will still contain the same CP killing salts, minerals, hardness and alkalinity. The flouride remains but it is good for your teeth unless you are a Dr strangelove fan. Toilet water = tap water Rain barrel plus freezing = explosion RO = distilled = dehumidifier You left out natural soft ground or lake water!
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Post by Rick Hillier on Apr 5, 2007 15:41:40 GMT -5
Brian: <<<Rain barrel plus freezing = explosion>>>
That's hilarious.
<<< RO = distilled = dehumidifier >>>
RO isn't quite as good as distilled. The purity will depend on the RO unit you have. I found this out the hard way when I started with my salt water reef tank. I used only distilled water for the first 2 years or so. Everything was fantastic - the corals grew and thrived, but my electricity bill was through the roof! I switched over to a fairly expensive RO system and over time, my corals stopped growing, and ultimately declined and started dying off.
Not knowing what the cause was, I figured that this just happened in aquariums, but when I would replace one that had thrived previously and it would be dead within a month.
After alot of screwing around, I found the culprit! Phosphates. It took a very expensive test kit to find them, but there they were in all their glory. I tested the water directly from the RO system and found phosphates at a very low concentration, but they were there. As I was using this water in an automated top-off system, they would accumulate as water evaporated and attain levels that were detrimental to corals. Phosphates interfere with a coral's ability to use calcium from the water to build its skeleton, among other things.
The solution was to purchase a separate deionizer from the aquarium store and run the RO system's output through it. The result is zero phosphates (or at least they're now undetectable).
This was a fourty thousand dollar lesson over a couple of years... I will need to rebuild the tank slowly over time now.
>>> Rick <<<
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Post by vraev on Apr 5, 2007 16:35:52 GMT -5
wow.....hmmm.....that makes me wonder if I should switch to distilled fo rmy plants. I right now use RO for everything. (plants only....I drink tap water passed through Brita) ....yup! my plants enjoy more luxaries than myself
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