Alkaline drinking water

[Kedron1977]

Has anyone ever thought of using alkaline drinking water in ato reservoir to raise ph.
Example: Essentia 9.5 drinking water and others..
Is it safe

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Has anyone ever thought of using alkaline during water in ato reservoir to raise ph.
Example: Essentia 9.5 drinking water and others..
Is it safe

It would just be like a very weak and expensive alkalinity supplement.

It's pH boost per unit of alk added is not very high. It might even lower pH of seawater, depending on what exactly it is.

 

[bdeignan]

Hello, had the exact same question. Understand what you’re saying about it being an inefficient and expensive way to boost the pH (ideally), but in small doses, can it hurt a reef tank?

Specific example would be that you run out of RO water, all that’s available at the store is Alkaline water, so you use that to top off the tank.

This is didn’t happen to me, but it almost did and it made me curious as to what would happen if I used alkaline water from the grocery store. Some research online just tells me that water is run through an ionizer and then considered alkaline, but I don‘t know what it does in a reef tank. Any insight?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

It is likely fine to use in small amounts, but it might boost phosphate and alk, depending on which brand and how much you add. The labels can be a bit misleading, listing things like pink himalayan salt without telling folks what is in that materials. It sounds much better to marketers than a list of sodium, chloride, bicarbonate, potassium, magnesium, sulfate, , phosphate, etc.

 

[bdeignan]

It is likely fine to use in small amounts, but it might boost phosphate and alk, depending on which brand and how much you add. The labels can be a bit misleading, listing things like pink himalayan salt without telling folks what is in that materials. It sounds much better to marketers than a list of sodium, chloride, bicarbonate, potassium, magnesium, sulfate, , phosphate, etc.

Awesome, thank you. That definitely makes sense

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

You’re welcome.

Happy Reefing

 

[brayden2980]

I was just thinking about this as well and decided against it, that essentia water and most other alkaline waters if not all, raise their ph through ionization. This is essentially exposing the water to copper to change the ph level (to my understanding). My fear was that the copper would leach into the water and many marine animals are sensitive to copper including sharks and coral. I couldn’t find much information on if ionized water could actually pose this threat, but I decided to be safe. How I raised my ph was through increased surface water agitation, running skimmer intake to the outside via an air pump, and having an aerated refugium installed.

 

[mattdumitrescu]

I ran a 55 gallon tank for 2 years on my homes alkaline water system. Got some icp tests and the water wasn’t 100% perfect but it worked and had a pretty successful mixed reef.

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I ran a 55 gallon tank for 2 years on my homes alkaline water system. Got some icp tests and the water wasn’t 100% perfect but it worked and had a pretty successful mixed reef.

What does your home alkaline water system do to the incoming tap water?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I was just thinking about this as well and decided against it, that essentia water and most other alkaline waters if not all, raise their ph through ionization. This is essentially exposing the water to copper to change the ph level (to my understanding). My fear was that the copper would leach into the water and many marine animals are sensitive to copper including sharks and coral. I couldn’t find much information on if ionized water could actually pose this threat, but I decided to be safe. How I raised my ph was through increased surface water agitation, running skimmer intake to the outside via an air pump, and having an aerated refugium installed.

I would caution that the term ionized water had no actual meaning in this context. It is a term meant to sound good to people without claiming anything.

 

[mattdumitrescu]

What does your home alkaline water system do to the incoming tap water?

I’m not a hundred percent sure what it does but I have well water gets softened, it’s around 440 tdi and then enters the alkaline system, I think it’s filtered through a ro system then goes through the alkaline procsess, but water comes out at 30ish tdi. Getting a 7stage rodi I got from brs installed in a couple days and will be switching to that

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

I’m not a hundred percent sure what it does but I have well water gets softened, it’s around 440 tdi and then enters the alkaline system, I think it’s filtered through a ro system then goes through the alkaline procsess, but water comes out at 30ish tdi. Getting a 7stage rodi I got from brs installed in a couple days and will be switching to that

Ok, thanks for the info.