Tap water quality where you live

Western WA, glacier-fed mountain lake. Piped down into about 2 million homes

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NickNick said:
My tap water here isn't that bad, around 125 TDS. I have a RO/DI system to make water for my reef tank so I split a line out after the RO filter, before the DI resin that runs to my refrigerator for drinking water and ice. It drops the water down to around 5 TDS.
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You into aquariums? That’s dope bro
I’m about to set something up at my new place, but I like freshwater mostly.
Thinking about starting a Fish Tank thread, seeing how many sherdoggers have tanks.
I want a big pond type setup so bad, lol
Love the fish and aquariums
 
Doomer said:
I only drink rainwater which i have near me, it has 1 TDS and most important is that you know and feel when you drink it, it's really fresh and energetic. I sometimes go to the woods near me, i have fresh spring water there, also amazing.

Reverse Osmosis is good for cities, TDS drops to 10, and it's soft and cleaner, but there is no freshness or energy, you just feel the difference compared to rainwater or spring water which revives you.
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The chance of rainwater having 1 TDS is next to none. With the world we live in, it's always going to pick up pollution.
 
jefferz said:
The chance of rainwater having 1 TDS is next to none. With the world we live in, it's always going to pick up pollution.
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I have the device and it literally has 1ppm. Maybe or probably rainwater in cities (especially bigger) has higher TDS, but where i live it has 1ppm. I know when there is no rain for some time it goes up to 4ppm, then after few rainy days it drops to 1ppm. Then i also remember measuring snow this year, melted it and it also had 1ppm.
 
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I don't think the tap water is that bad here, but I've lived here for awhile now. I was reminded that the water has a different taste to it compared to up north, as i had guests visiting over the weekend. I live along the Gulf Coast, and the water has a bit of a sulfur taste to it, from the sea shells I'm guessing. I'm used to it, but for new people it isn't so great.

I've rarely experienced a boil order here. When living in Illinois boil orders were issued all the time. I began joking I was living in a third world country.
 
Neck&Neck said:
One day I was talking to a Waster Waste Management guy
And he tossed me this nugget:
If does not matter how clean your water source is, if its been run through a bunch of old dirty pipes.
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That reminded me of a guy I knew who worked for the water dept of his town. He said out of all the stuff people flush down the toilet (condoms, cig butts, tampons etc) the one thing that always fucks up his pumps are baby wipes. They won't break down. He said it looked like one of those magic shows with magician pulling the cloth out of his sleeve when he had to break the line and clear it.

Doomer said:
I only drink rainwater which i have near me, it has 1 TDS and most important is that you know and feel when you drink it, it's really fresh and energetic. I sometimes go to the woods near me, i have fresh spring water there, also amazing.
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I heard the same thing before and used to think it was bullshit until I got to experience this myself. It really does energize you, and it's a clear difference coming right from mother nature! Sounds like a dream location to live man. Congrats!
 
jefferz said:
125tds is a FW neocaradina (cherry) shrimp keepers dream. That’s perfect.
I use ro/di and remineralize with a Salty Shrimp product to get back to 125tds on my shrimp tank.
Do you get your stuff from Bulk Reef Supply?
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Yep, I get pretty much everything from BRS. I have a few good LFS around me that I grab sediment filters from since they are cheap and generally not worth having to ship. When anyone asks me on how to set up a water filter system I point them to BRS instead of the solutions on Amazon.
 
supermurph said:
I have an inline water filter because the tap would usually have a heavy chlorine smell prior to this. And lately, with this issue, the water smells a wet dog. So I boiled the tap water forgetting about the filter, and put it in pitchers in the fridge. Tastes just like the deer park water coolers at work. Think I'll just do this going forward regardless of when they fix it.
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Both boiling water and letting it sit will let chloring evaporate out, so this could be part of the difference. Boiling ten minutes will get most of the chlorine out, and letting it sit a couple of days will also let most of it evaporate.
 
val_lixembeau said:
Both boiling water and letting it sit will let chloring evaporate out, so this could be part of the difference. Boiling ten minutes will get most of the chlorine out, and letting it sit a couple of days will also let most of it evaporate.
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That’s if your water company still uses chlorine. Most have moved on to chloramine, which can’t be gassed off.
 
I've been using Brita faucet mount filter for many years and sometimes my mouth tastes like charcoal. Does charcoal cause health problems?

Sometimes taking a shower, with the hot water, I smell something like mildew. I'm hoping the heat kills the germs first.
 
Here in Indiana it's really good. Although 20 minutes away in my buddy's town he has "well" water. It's OK but it just doesn't taste as good. After using my Keurig coffee maker at his house for 5 months I finally cleaned it out. There was a sandy brown sludge at the very bottom of it.
 
The water source that supply the city is fantastic, safe to drink, the dam and nearby area are off-limit unless you work for the dam.

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The problem is that it's almost impossible to guarantee the safety of the infrastructure from the dam to the tap at home. If there is a dirty old pipe or lead pipe somewhere in the chain, then it's not that safe anymore. So I still have a 4-filter system at home so I can have drinking water on demand without having to first boil or manually filter water like those Brita pitchers.
 
Been drinking well water for decades . It makes you appreciate where it comes from and the possible contaminants be they organic or inorganic . Government water testing for private wells is usually quite basic and good but didn't used to test ( seems to be changing ) for things like herbicides , pesticides or flame retardents the "forever" chemicals that are hard to prove are very damaging in very small amounts but we all know they are doing harm . Something is making off the charts number of kids autistic , ADHD and in my area brain tumours are at all time highs among people under 60 .
This link shows how widespread chemicals are in our water https://www.ewg.org/interactive-maps/pfas_contamination/

and just when you think reverse osmosis water systems are the answer it has been found they release a large amount of microplastic from the filtration membranes and plastic water bottles are another source of microplastics that remain in the human body and don't break down ... ever . LA DEE DAH we are fucked
 
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