distilled water myths?

[Minh Nguyen]

Actually I think what the site is referring to is using distilled water in a freshwater tank in which case it will indeed kill fish. The distilled water is ionless (relatively) and as such causes the fish's cells to swell with water and unless they can regulate the water content quickly, it can indeed kill them. I have seen a betta jump from its bowl as a roomate decided to change its water and used distilled instead of dechlorinated tapwater. The same would occur with RO water.

In regards to saltwater, thats stupid as its got salt in it.

Wade

Distill water will not harm fresh water fish. I have a Betta bowl. I use distil water in it because I dont have any Chlorine remover. I just make sure the gallon container stay next to the fish bow for several hours so that the temperature is the same. I do change 100% of the water.
I am not sure if the fish would survide long term under distill water 100% of the time.
I can tell you that my Betta that I have for the last 18 months is in excellent health. I do feed him every few days, so after a week or so, there are plenty of ions and impurities in the water. I got one of the rare wild Betta that have short tail instead of the long tail variety that we often see at the pet shop.

This is a wild type MALE Betta, not the female betta which have short tail.

 

[wombat1]

Minh wrote:

Distill water will not harm fresh water fish.

Are you really using distilled water from a bottle or just your RO water Minh?? Can anyone tell us the chemical difference (if there is any) between really high quality RO water and distilled???

 

[NaCl-H2O]

Distilled is pure water. RO/DI and DI are nearly pure, for reef keeping purposes just as good. RO however is noticably different and is prone to have some PO4, Si2O aswell as other substances after filtering that's why people choose the filter with the DI cartrage (RO/DI). But it really has alot to do with were your at and what the water quality is before you filter it. In some areas were water quality is better runnig it through a RO filter is enough to get it clean enough for reef porposes.

I don't know how he could keep a fish alive in distilled without adding something to it, but he could keep it in RO depending on the quality of the water and how much and how many salts made it through the filter.

 

[Minh Nguyen]

.....
I don't know how he could keep a fish alive in distilled without adding something to it, but he could keep it in RO depending on the quality of the water and how much and how many salts made it through the filter.

Guys, before you says that it cannot be done, please go buy a gold fish or a Betta and try it. Please note that I did not keep my Betta in distill water all the time. I am sure after one or two feeding, the water would have impurities in it, and no longer pure. I don't see any reason why distill water would kill a fresh water fish short term, and from experience I know that it does not kill my fish.
The cell would see very little differeces between RO water with disolve solid of 3 ppm vs. distil water with disolve solid of less than 1 ppm. This is because disolve solid in the cells are in the order of ~300 ppt (normal serum osmolarity of Human plasma). Sorry, I don't know about extracellular and intracellular fluids of fishes.

 

[Anonymous]

Distilled is pure water. RO/DI and DI are nearly pure, for reef keeping purposes just as good.

You've got it backwards, sort of. Distilled water has just been fractionated taking the fraction that is mostly water. Distilled water can, and usually does, contain organics and earth metal salts. Its resistivity is usually in the 0.9-3.0 MOhm range.

RO water is guaranteed to have less contaminants than the source water. How much less depends on the membrane, and what contaminants depends on the source water. Good membranes reject about 95-99% over their life. I have seen membranes that only reject high mw proteins, too, but none of those should be in water filters.

DI has been deionized to some degree. Industrial DIers have output resistivities in 1.0-5.0 MOhm range, but lab grade (the kind many of us use) are capable of output with 18.2 MOhm resistance. Aside from burning hydrogen gas in pure oxygen, these are going to be the purest source of water available.

 

[Anonymous]

OK, now I'm confused. I though distilled water is basically evaporated and the condensed. You're saying the earth metal salts and organics evaporate along with it?

 

[NaCl-H2O]

Don't worry Dan C, Earth salts and metals do not evaporate and then condense in the distilled water, I've seen test on distilled water and the only thing that survives the distillation is sometimes very very small traces of chlorine(far less than normal sea water), most likely because it is a gas. When I get home from work I will hunt some of them down for you all. The only way metals or other salts would be in there is if it's contaminataed with them between filtering and bottling. Distlled is better then 99% pure as well as RO/DI and RO is 95% to 99% pure.

 

[O P Ing]

hi.
During product of distillation, anything that have a boiling point near the water will evaporate and condense with the steam. If you want to make distill water from the big barrel of home-brew beer by boiling and condense it, you will not be able to use the distilled "water" for you betta bowl :wink:

My point is that in distillation, the type and amount of contanimates depends on the water source. As mentioned, organics is a typical problem in distilled water. Mineral (Na, Ba, Ca, Mg) typically is not a problem because most of they are refractory ions.

In laboratory, some even uses triple-distilled water and still not getting good result, and have to go with deion technology.

You don't have to burn H2 in pure O2. Just in air is fine as long as you don't mind about CO2 and other gas/particles that will dissolved in the resulting H2O.

As some people has always says this, but let me say it again. If you add DI/distill water to a betta bowl/drinking glass, it won't be DI/distill anymore because the ions in the bowl/glass. If you never have problem with drinking DI/distill water all your life, that's because you don't risen your entire intestinal track with DI water before drinking it. If you never have problem with using DI/distill on your betta bowl, that's because you never scrap and clean your bowl and your fish enough, and that left over flake on the bottom of the bowl, or that mouthful of old water in the betta's mouth, make the newly added DI water not as good as it used to.

 

[O P Ing]

hi.
Another issue is the fish or any other organism, rarely have same osm. as the surrounding environment. A healthy organism have kidney and other special gland that can regulate and maintain homostaticity with reasonable range. Freshwater fish always excrete water from its body without ever "drink" water. Saltwater fish always excrete salt from its body. If the salinity is vastly different from its usual environment, it just tax the fish and stud its growth and activity because large amount of energy is needed to keep the kidney and what not function. If the fish is overcome by the environment, it will die from complications.

 

[NaCl-H2O]

If you're filtering your own, RO/DI is the best way to go.
If you have to purchase water, good distilled drinking water is the best way to go.

You cannot look at distilled drinking water as simply distilled, as with any drinking water it is processed though several filtering processes, distilled is just the primary. The shortcomings of distilled primarily VOC's are handled by the secondary filters. I would never recommend the purchase or use of a still to make water at home as you would only be doing part of the process. I think if you have the money a good RO/DI is the best way to go. Distilled drinking water is the best way to go short of buying a home RO/DI unit.

VOCs, are volatile organic compounds, volatile meaning that these chemicals can be evaporated and then recondensed into a liquid state along with the water. It is the job of the secondary filters to remove these and anything else that may make it though.

If you want to get right down to atom/molecule counting there is no such thing as pure water even if you burned hydrogen to make it, as air pollution and contaminates on the collection surface, piping and containment vessel would pollute the water. We can only get as close as our budgets allow.

I was unable to find the other reference material I read on distilled drinking water. I wasn't the person who found it to begin with I just followed someone else's link, but I was able to find this, if it helps

http://www.waterdistillers-polarbear.com/test.html