"Foodsafe" Water storage Vs Not - Does it really matter?

[NigelRichardson]

My reef has (very nearly) made it to the first year mark - a personal milestone - and despite a few "exciting" moments, we're doing ok and hanging in there...

I store 100 litres (Metric, sorry - I'm in Australia) of RODI water in a rainwater barrel that I bought from the gardening section of a hardware store, and i'm conscious its NOT Foodsafe verified. I then mix up 30 litres of saltwater at a time in a smaller water container - tagged as "suitable for camping" which I'm taking to be food safe, without with using the words.

I've read several articles saying that water storage needs to be food safe stamped / verified / certified etc. and that Foodsafe storage solutions "guarantee" no chemicals end up in the water

However I haven't seen anything that actually says how bad this is can be / if this is essential / what happens if you don't do this... Is this a recommendation or a mandatory rule I'm breaking?

I've found Foodsafe storage solutions to be incredibly hard to find here in Australia (Any suggestions?), and wondering I've just been lucky / if I'm on borrowed time before a total crash, or if this isn't actually critical (Keeping LPS / Softies right now, and I'm pretty sure that any corals that haven't made it have been more due to flow / placement / lights / my mistakes than anything in the water)

I have an ICP test where I'm waiting for results - anything I should expect to see if plastic nasties are indeed getting into the water?

Any and all thoughts appreciated.

 

[Reef.]

I believe to get to use the “food safe” label the product doesn’t only need to not release a certain amount of toxins in to the substance it’s holding but it also needs to be made in a food safe factory.

My RO container didn’t have the food safe label, I emailed the manufacturer and they stated it was in fact food safe but couldn’t be labelled as such because of the way it was manufactured, but was suitable to hold water in a food safe way.

 

[Spieg]

Don't know what the rules are down under, but in the US, it's common to find water containers (for holding drinking water) that are not BPA free. These are known to be a problem. I generally try to find Nalgene containers to be on the safe side.