Using RO water in my betta tank

[skarloeysmom]

We have a reverse osmosis filtered water tap in our kitchen sink that we use for drinking and cooking. I've been using that water in my betta's tank and he seems to be fine with it. Should I be letting the RO water sit out too or is it fine to just use it straight out of the tap.

I'm pretty new to fish keeping and I'm reading a lot but I can't seem to find anything about using RO filtered water.

[amanichen]

Here's a quick and dirty overview of using R/O water:

In short, R/O strips water of most everything in it. It's good in the fact that it lacks a whole bunch of undesirable organic and inorganic chemicals, metals, and other contaminants.

However, that also means that beneficial metals, trace elements, and pH buffering chemicals aren't be present, so you need to add them back in.

Option 1 is this:

www.kentmarine.com/freshwater/ror.html
Plus
www.kentmarine.com/freshwater/nc.html

Option 2 is this:

www.seachem.com/products/product_pages/FreshTrace.html
Plus
www.seachem.com/products/product_pages/neytralRegulator.html

[skarloeysmom]

Well thank you so much for the quick reply!

Would it be better to just use tap water and put the conditioner in it? How long to you have to let water sit with the conditioner before adding to the tank?

I have Tetra Aquasafe (a sample I got with my tank) and Betta Plus bowl conditioner. Will either work? I'm going to buy a water test kit soon and see how the water is doing in my tanks. Can you recommend a good kit that will test for all the things I need to monitor water-wise?

Thanks again for the quick reply!

[amanichen]

Would it be better to just use tap water and put the conditioner in it?

Chemically speaking, R/O water that's been properly supplemented will be superior to tap water.

Whether or not it's cost-effective for you to use re-supplemented R/O water depends on how bad your tap water is: if your tap water is good enough for your fish, R/O isn't worth the cost.

How long to you have to let water sit with the conditioner before adding to the tank?

The answer is that as long as you thorougly mix it, it can go in right away. The long answer involves matching water temperature, and other possible considerations:

s94779296.onlinehome.us/website/Fish/articles/tap_water_conditioning.html

I have Tetra Aquasafe (a sample I got with my tank) and Betta Plus bowl conditioner. Will either work?

Aquasafe will work fine to condition your tap water for chlorine/chloramine and metals.

I'm going to buy a water test kit soon and see how the water is doing in my tanks. Can you recommend a good kit that will test for all the things I need to monitor water-wise?

Hagen makes decent stuff, as do Red Sea Phish Pharm and Aquarium Pharmaceuticals.

[skarloeysmom]

I guess I'll test my tap water first to see. I think our city water is actually pretty good but the test may change my mind. Thanks for all your help and recommendations!

[skarloeysmom]

I got my test kit and tested both tanks, my tap water and my RO water supply. Here's what I found:

2.5 Tank with filtration and 2 white clouds and 2 Otto Cats -
pH - 6.6
no amonnia
no nitrite
20 nitrate
Does this mean that this tank is cycled? It has been running since January of this year.
Will 25% water changes once a week should keep this one on track? Should I be checking the nitrate level and ammonia level on this tank to see when to do water changes?

Skarloey's 1 gallon tank -
Found 1.0 ammonia and did a 50% water change which brought the ammonia down to .50 I did a 100% water change only 4 days ago but he's been eating and pooping a lot since he's been feeling better.
I think I'm going to wait to do more water changing because I don't want to shock my recovering betta. If I haven't mentioned it before he had what looked like the beginnings of dropsy last week. I'm finishing up his treatment today. He also has fin rot.
I checked the pH after I changed the water and to my horror I found that it was 7.6.
This got me thinking about pH of tap v.s. the RO. I checked both and found that our tap is so hard that it practical comes out of the faucet in chucks - pH 8.8!!!
I checked the RO water and it's at a perfect 7.0.
Instead of buying more chemicals to resupplement my RO water I am considering using a mix of conditioned tap and RO to bring down the pH to a normal level. Does that sound like a workable solution? It may take some work to perfect but once I have the mix figured out it should be easy.

I'm loving the new test kit! I got the Aquarium Pharm. Master Test kit and it's really nice. Is there any other tests that I need to do that are not covered in that kit? It tests for pH, high end pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.

Thanks,
Grace

[skarloeysmom]

P.S. I also just ordered a Hagen mini Thermal Compact 25W heater for Skarloey's tank to get the temp back up for him. I'm afraid he might me a bit cool in his new digs.

I'm trying really hard to make this fish happy and comfortable after I nearly killed him with my ignorance.

Grace

[bettons]

skarloeysmom said:

Should I be checking the nitrate level and ammonia level on this tank to see when to do water changes?

yes your first tank is cycled so you don't have to check for ammonia to do water changes since it will most likely be 0, unless you disturb the good bacteria some way that all die.

nitrates are 20 which means a water change soon. Just check nitrates to keep it low and check ammonia and nitrite twice a month to make sure everything is running smoothly.

skarloeysmom said:

Found 1.0 ammonia and did a 50% water change which brought the ammonia down to .50 I did a 100% water change only 4 days ago but he's been eating and pooping a lot since he's been feeling better.

try to keep ammonia at 0, a lot of hobbyist consider ammonia above .25ppm toxic, but even .25 is harmful to fish.

skarloeysmom said:

Instead of buying more chemicals to resupplement my RO water I am considering using a mix of conditioned tap and RO to bring down the pH to a normal level. Does that sound like a workable solution? It may take some work to perfect but once I have the mix figured out it should be easy.

yes you can mix R/O water with treated tap water to bring down PH to your desired PH.

skarloeysmom said:

I'm loving the new test kit! I got the Aquarium Pharm. Master Test kit and it's really nice. Is there any other tests that I need to do that are not covered in that kit? It tests for pH, high end pH, ammonia, nitrite and nitrate.

you can buy a KH & GH test kit which can be very helpful if anything wrong happens to you water chemistry which can affect the fish.

[skarloeysmom]

Thanks for all the help! I did another 50% water change and got the ammonia down to 0. I tried using the RO and conditioned tap mix and managed to get the pH just right on the first try. I'll probably go ahead and do 100% changes twice a week to keep Skarloey's tank as clean to speed his recovery from the fin rot.

[bettons]

hope everything works out!

just to make sure, can you post the KH of the mixed water.

[skarloeysmom]

I haven't bought any extra water test kits yet but I'm pretty sure Skarloey is well on the road back to good health. He's back to flaring again and today he built his first bubble nest in I can't remember how long. I think he's loving living in the nice clean water without anyone hassling him. I'm making sure to keep the ammonia levels in check with twice a week water changes.

[accountingchick]

That is wonderful that Skarloey is doing better and is back to his old self again. Good job mom. I am sure that you were just stressed as the fish was. I know I am when my babies are sick.

[skarloeysmom]

skarloeysmom said:

2.5 Tank with filtration and 2 white clouds and 2 Otto Cats -
pH - 6.6
no amonnia
no nitrite
20 nitrate

I went to buy Skarloey his own 2.5 gallon Mini Bow and it turns out that my cycled tank is a 5 gallon. Oops!! I guess I'm not crowding the fish in that one after all, well at least now that the betta is out of there. I don't know how I forgot that I bought a 5 gallon-mommy brain I guess!

Anyway, I've got Skarloey his own 2.5 tank set up now and I think I'm going to try to cycle it using the filter carteridge from the other tank and put him in when the water chemistry levels are checked out. All the fish are going to be so happy now!!!