Quote Originally Posted by zerocool5878
I am a firm beiliver of RO over Distilled. I have been in the hobby of saltwater reef tanks for years and IMO there is a big difference in quality. I only use water directly from my local aquarium which is actually RO/DI Its basicly lab quality water.

I ordered a ppm meter I will post when it comes in.
That's great that you've found a source of known high-quality RO. I hadn't thought of asking the local aquarium for some, great tip! I'm going to call first thing on Monday. How much do they charge you for it?

You're right about RO vs distilled. The problem with distilled is that the quality can be all over the place between bottles/brands that say "distilled". Some is chemically purified, some is filtered, some is RO, some is processed 3 or 4 ways, etc, etc... If I'm not mistaken, the only requirement (in the USA) for water to be labeled "distilled" is that, at some point in the process, it is vaporized then condensed. There is no minimum ppm or purity requirement. But, that said, even the cheapest distilled water is better than using tap, IMHO (unless you've got some damn good tap water).

One final thing... you might want to ask to speak to the owner of your hydro shop some day and tell them they have someone giving completely bad advice. Trust me, they don't want their customers to be losing crops (which will happen if people start to follow that guy's "advice"). You have to actually have something growing to continue to buy stuff from the shop, right? Anyway, just a thought.