what kind of bottled water would you use for a new tank? Drinking, or Purified?

Question

we live in a small town with a HORRIBLE water system. some areas of town, the water is better than others, like my house isn't too bad, but the office is horrible. my new tank is going in the office, and i don't want to fill jugs of water and haul them, it would just be easier to get bottles from the store, so, my question is, should i use reverse osmosis water, drinking water, or purified water????? or should i just give them Culligan??? lol

any help would be great, thanks!! and please, no smart a$s answers.........

our tap water is so bad that it's almost brown. trust me, i need to use bottled water.

i do use aquasafe and also, Tetra Easy Balance.

we also, get salt creep from using out normal tap water - on freshwater tanks.

you have no idea how horrible our tap water is.

Answer 1

Your best bet is to use R/O. R/O strips your water of almost everything that is in it. Because R/O strips your water of almost everything, including essential minerals and nutrients (trace elements), you must replace them. You can pick up trace elements at your local pet store.

http://www.aquariumhelp.aliveinindy.com

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

Neither. Drinking/purified water lacks the minerals present in tap water, and your fish will eventually become sickly and fragile if they live their lives in plain H20. Unless your water is visibly opaque with nasty stuff or has a weird pH, it is probably fine to use with a regular dechlorinator in it.

You can find dechlorinators like AquaSafe (there are a bunch of them on the market) at any pet store. The right amount (be sure to read the bottle) added to your tap water will neutralize chlorine and usually other impurities too.

If you're really worried about the quality, take it to a reputable (stress on the reputable) pet shop to be tested.

Answer 3

I would use RO water and it should be the cheapest of the choices.

However I recommend that you mix it with tap water, even if it's only 25% tap water.

Answer 4

you can run your nasty water through a britta filter if you want to go the cheap route... the brown water is probably just rust.

spring water should work too if you can get it.

don't get distilled water.

and I'd recommend you move... seriously brown water?

Answer 5

Any bottles water should be fine almost, as long as it has no additives.

Answer 6

Use tap and a declorinator such as stress coat.

Answer 7

reverse osmosis is your best bet. I use it every time! Never had a problem