Terrarium builds

[smashtoad]

Now correct me if I am wrong here, but I'm pretty sure you're supposed to build back the mineral content in RO water through the use of various salts if you plan on using it for anything other than cleaning, otherwise your animals run the same risks as drinking distilled water.

I've never added anything to my RO, but I would not dispute the possibility that some mineral addition may be beneficial. My guess is that there are lots of aquarium products that will fit the bill. Again...as long as they don't end up creating hard to clean water spots on my glass I am a happy camper...so design against splash. It is not as easy as it sounds.

[John]

Many good points made.

On "Senior Members" - I never liked that whole rank thing - it only comes from the number of posts that people make and has nothing to do with the quality of those posts, or that person's knowledge/experience. I would be quite happy to change it to something else. What do you all think?

Regarding the points made by Smashtoad - I think again some of what you're saying is definitely open to individual opinion. Which is fine, but everything we post really needs a proviso/disclaimer of "Your mileage may vary".

Regarding the distilled or R/O water issue, it really depends on how you're dealing with the water in your terrarium. If you are keeping darts, the chances are you never remove water from the terrarium. In that case you should not be putting anything into the distilled or R/O water - you want to maintain the amount of dissolved salts already in the terrarium. Now if you do water changes then you should be adding dissolved salts, otherwise you'll be constantly removing salts and nutrients from the terrarium.