Normally either some tap water or one of the many products that are on the market can be used to remineralise the ro water to make it suitable for plants.
Ro water planted tank.
This ro water is almost completely void of any minerals or compounds that are required for healthy plants.
Step by step on how to remineralize your ro water.
The aquarium will be a freshwater tropical tank.
However the ro process removes all minerals from the water even those are needed.
Reverse osmosis water gives you total control of the hardness level in your planted tank.
If you are not needing much water which for shrimp tanks they are usually relatively small and i need just 5 gallons a week then this is the way to go.
I had to rant about ro water being used in a planted tank.
Now keep in mind the water that runs through my ro unit is relatively soft and about 100 tds so this will most likely help make the original filters last longer than harder and higher tds water.
You want water that has the.
However they do not contain some of the important minerals that are critical to plants.
Tap water is cheap to use.
Main problem being is that you aren t sure of what is being added.
I have been reading about the use of ro water for freshwater and constantly see reference to needing to replace minerals but no reference to what minerals these are.
For these minerals you will need to add them back manually on top on any plant fertilizers that you are already using.
Good news is most of them can be added to the ro water via plant fertilizers.
There are pros and cons to both these methods.
So if the gh of the tap water is 20 and what is needed for the fish tank is a gh of 5 mixing ro water with tap water will produce the desired result.
It will feature heavy planting with a co2 system and high output lighting.
Too many people basically are trying too hard with ro water you don t want water with nothing left in it.
Otherwise it will be harmful to your livestock and plants a gradient can form where pure water will seek to equalize osmolarity with the water contained in living cells which have a higher amount of dissolved substances ultimately resulting in the cells swelling and potentially rupturing.
Ro also eliminated excess nutrients that cause algae blooms in brightly lit planted tanks.