reverse osmosis water

Have been reading up on reverse osmosis water (r/o) just wondering if anyone here is using it and what do they think of it.

Also i understand it removes 95% of the minerals etc from the water and removes the minerals needeed by tropical fish which allows you to adjust the water chemistery to ur own needs and have ur aquarium water quality stay at the same levels.

Just have a few questions on it,

Is it hard to bring the R/O water back to the levels required and how to keep levels the same.

Id like to here from anyone using it to get some info on it coz reeding stuff on the net never really gives you the correct answers and if im changing over to it id like to no coz dont wanna start messing round causing problems.

Alan

Alan you are probably better off staying with tap water.
I use RO all the time but if i felt i could use tap water all the time i would.

With RO units the water is pushed through a series of membranes to only let pure water through. This is like having a tap trickling of pure water and in most cases a lot of waste water goes down the drain. I plumb the waste water to a storage tank in the attic to feed the toilets etc.
It can take a long time to get enough pure RO water depending on water pressure. The pH of the water going in to the RO unit also effects the pH of the water coming out of it.
When the water comes out of the RO unit it is nearly 100% pure. It wont even have any oxygen in it.
So you need to heat it, aerate it (24 hours is recommended) and add minerals to get you to the desired pH, gH, kH etc.
Heating and aerating is straight forward but adding the minerals can be tricky depending on what pH ,gh & kh you are trying to achieve. Personally after 14 months of using pure remineralized RO i can never get my Kh high enough to stabilize the pH for more than a week in a very soft water set up. Hard water with a high pH would be a lot easier.

After you have made up the RO water the chemistry will change when you add it to the tank. So if you were to constantly prepare the RO water to give you a pH of 7, gh of 2 and kh of 1 this is not what the water parameters would be all the time in the tank. Ro is a not a quick fix.
I have a tank that i keep the ph at 6.5, gh at 2 and the kh 1. But the RO i make up is ph7.2, gh2 and kh>2.
I know that dosent make sence but thats water chemistery for ye.

I know this is a negative post on RO but it was ment to be.
If you want more time sitting back enjoying your fish and can get away with it use tap water.
If you feel you want to go with RO or just want to lern more about it just ask.

I've always had a 6 chamber RO unit and never used the water for changes but sometime planned to use them now having second thoughts.

good post platy.
i used to use ro water and although it had many benefits, it was also very fiddly and needed monitoring esp. in softwater set ups.
i use a deioniser when trying to create better water for delicate species and its less messy. just connect the unit to a tap, draw off a few gallons, add the supplied additives and aerate for a short time. then add to tank as water change and this will greatly improve water quality. disconnect unit and store till needed again.