Water Change Vs Reverse Osmosis, Water Change vs Reverse Osmosis Options

[ameister]

Let me post a theoretical question...

I understand the need to do regular water changes to remove some nitrates and growth inhibitors. What if we hook up a reverse osmosis system to the aquarium and cycling 20-30% of water through the reverse osmosis system on a weekly or twice a week. Any topping up could also go through the RO system.

If I am not mistaken, RO forces molecules via membrane as it purify the water. It can remove most bacteria, heavy metals and even sodium in some setups. A nitrate molecule is bigger than a sodium molecule, so nitrates will be removed. We can use plants to remove nitrates anyways. As for the growth inhibitor, it should be a large organic molecule and so easily removed by the RO system.

I have recently moved to a flat/apartment and if I were to setup an aquarium big enough for my liking, I dread the water change process that I will be getting myself into.

To all you Goldfish Gurus out there, I your advice, comments and suggestions.

[goldrush]

Reverse osmosis (RO) is a water purification process in which water is forced through a semi-permeable membrane that removes 90-99% of tap water impurities. The result is water free of minerals and other contaminants and that include all the essential minerals for the well being of your fishes as well.However bacteria are just too small to be filtered out so it is not an effective infective control.
Water change is still the best ,the most economical option and perhaps a part and parcel of our goldfish keeping

[Bak2it]

Reverse osmosis (RO) is a water purification process in which water is forced through a semi-permeable membrane that removes 90-99% of tap water impurities. The result is water free of minerals and other contaminants and that include all the essential minerals for the well being of your fishes as well.However bacteria are just too small to be filtered out so it is not an effecive infective control.
Water change  is still the best ,the  most economical option and perhaps a part and parel  our goldfish keeping    

I agree with the majority of Goldrush's post, especially about water changes being the best and most economical options. But there is no way a bacteria or a virus can make it through the membrane of a RO unit. The average size of the pores in a reverse osmosis membrane are only 0.0005 microns in size. Bacteria are from 0.2 - 1.0 and viruses are 0.02 - 0.4 micron in size.

The biggest draw back to trying to clean aquarium water with an RO unit is the amount of rejected water. A typical RO unit will process between 3 to 10 gallons of tank water to produce a single gallon of RO water.

If you'd like to check out some filter systems that ACTUALLY will work for virtually eliminating water changes, check out the filter systems made by Sea Visions.

http://www.seavisions.com/products.htm