Nemo demands clean water!

You know in Duece Bigalow.. alright, you may not have seen it since Rob doesn't make the best movies... but you've heard of him, right? Anyway, in the movie, there's a scene where he returns home from his day job, give his fish fresh water while he drinks... well basically sewage. As sad as this seems, this appears to be the direction I'm heading towards as I dive deeper into the hobby.

The last time I kept salt water fish I was living at school so while water quality wasn't so great, I really didn't have a choice or a place to plop down a RO/DI unit. (I was also a n00b.) As a result, I ended up with a lot of nuisance green algae that I had a constant battle with. It wasn't the end of the world... but scraping the glass every couple of days with a razor blade so I can look inside was no fun.

In the world of salt water fish, reverse osmosis deionized water (or RO/DI) is pretty much considered a necessity for keeping your fish happy. Yes, the fish swim in their own crap, but they prefer to do so without your human chemicals added in there. RO/DI units are commercially available for your homes if you care about the quality of your drinking water, but most of us leave the water purifying job to the city and really don't think much about it. Anyway... you can buy RO/DI units with anywhere from 4 to 7 stages (or "chambers") and for the most part, these can run a pretty penny. If you pay your own water bill, I'm sure this could add up in the long run as well since it takes about 4 gallons of wasted water to produce 1 gallon of purified water. (Luckily in Atlanta, condo communities share one giant water meter and spread the cost throughout the whole community... Guess who is going to get their share of the water buffet and THEN some... =D )

In the end, after you get it all setup and stuff... you'll get absolute pure water with nothing added in so you can pour your salt and other additives to fool your fish thinking it's real ocean water. Of course, the other option is going to your local fish store (LFS) and buy RO/DI water for about a quarter a gallon or pre-mixed salt water for about $1.25 a gallon. Whatever you decide, purity is appreciated by your 'lil pets whom you can never actually pet.

Here's a tip though, eBay has sellers that offer six stage RO/DI filters starting at $60 and up. These work just as well as the $300 systems plus you'll have money left over for a giant trash bin to store your water and other accessories for your new addiction. As far as how good they are, people seem to like them.

As you shop for RO/DI filters, you will notice some RO units with clear casings and some with white casings. These are for the most part, both the same and they do not affect how the RO units work. The clear casings are good because you can get a visual indicator on when you should replace your filters which normally should be replaced every 6 to 12 months depending on the chamber. The bad side of the clear casings is that the plastic used to make the clear casing is a bit more brittle than the white ones. If you have butter fingers, you could very well crack one if you drop it. The white casing although blind, are as tough as the Chinese food soup containers. or so I've heard...

Anyway, hopefully within the next month I will have this part of the process checked off. In time, maybe I'll accept the fact that drinking pure water from a giant trash can is okay.