Diluting issues

[halefmly]

Distilled water is only 66 cents for a gallon at WalMart.

[CarlD]

Distilled water is only 66 cents for a gallon at WalMart.

Yeah, that's less than $2, right?

[waterbear]

The problem with tap water is that it is often sanitized with choramines. You can try testing your tap water for FC and CC and see if there is any present and if there isn't then it's probably ok to use but since distilled water is so cheap and readily available why bother?

[denanbob]

Thanks everyone! I got distilled water and it turned out better. My chlorine is finally down to a manageable "5" and the kids are swimming again! I don't know WHAT my husband did, but we haven't added chlorine in 9 days and we've had hot sunny days to burn it off. It must have been WAY up there! LOL!

[chem geek]

If you have a water filter (usually with activated carbon/charcoal), then that usually strips any chlorine or chloramine from the water. I know it does in my case as I've tested it. In fact, it's a good way to know when a water filter is too old and needs to be replaced -- you start to measure some chlorine or monochloramine if it needs replacement. Bottled water (i.e. spring water) is also likely to not have chlorine or monochloramine in it, but you can always test a suspect water source on its own to be sure. Carl is right that actual distilled water is the safest bet, but these other options have also worked for me. In particular, if you are diluting to measure TA or CH (for some reason -- usually dilution is not required for these tests), then using distilled water is really the only way to do that properly.

Richard