Top Off Water for Office Tank

[jrobbins]

Hey guys,

Its been nearly 3 months that I have been planning to move my 50 cube into my office, and I just have one final hurdle to overcome, topoff water.

I have no access to a sink to hook up an RO unit, and i have no desire to constantly lug buckets of RO on the subway, so here is what i came up with. let me know if anybody thinks this is a dumb idea.

I plan to use the big Poland Springs mineral water bottles that normally is used in the water cooler and drop the osmolator pump in the container. The pump will feed the mineral water through an old API Tap Water Filter that I have, and then into the sump. thus giving me access to di water for topoffs. Will this work? are there any pitfalls that I am overlooking?

 

[prattreef]

You should be fine. I use bottled water in a pinch all the time. Years ago I even had them send me an assay of the water and it was fine. Is it as pure as Ro/DI ? probably not, but good enough.

 

[jrobbins]

so should i even bother with the api tapwater filter (the di)?

 

[prattreef]

sounds like a hassle to me. I'd try to do without it unless there are problems. Cost seems to me the biggest drawback of bottled water.

 

[Malibu361]

I used distilled water in my top off when my RO was jammed up...

 

[MARCOANTONIOJR]

do you cover the top of your tank?is it a open top?
i covered my tank with glass on top and my sump also and i have very little evaporation, which in turn means less top off water to add. maybe that helps a little.

i have a 120 with a 40 gallon sump actually the sump is holdin 15 gallons.. the last chamber holds my top off of 8 gallons which i refill maybe once every 2 weeks.
if u have a sump a let the water level go near the min you'll evap more i try to avoid that

 

[Will C]

I had a 54 g in my office and used bottled water. I never tested the bottled water and never had a problem. You can go to the company's website to read their waters element content if you want, I did'nt. I got my water from home depot and it worked out well

 

[jrobbins]

thanks for all the replies! i too have used it before in an emergency but i was kind of worried about using it exclusively. my big fear is that some weird mineral is added to the water that could build up in the system over time.

as for the cost, it really isnt that bad, as we get a ton of water delivered to the office and never really use all of it.

 

[Wes]

just curious, if top-off water is an issue how do you plan to do water changes?

 

[zenfish]

don't some companies use a bactericide in their bottled water? I don't mean chlorine...

 

[jrobbins]

petco boxed saltwater

just curious, if top-off water is an issue how do you plan to do water changes?