Cycling with tap water

R

rafaelpty20

New member
Hello everybody, i have a 220 gallon tank , and is filled with tap water. The rocks where outside in the garage for 2 month, they not alive no more. Can i cycle with tap water , and add salt, or should i use RO water, to cycle. Would this be a problem? or by a month cycling it would be the same result as using RO water?
 
Cycling with tap water

I'd use RODI. Tap will have minerals like copper that your rocks will absorb and cause problems down the road. Yes it takes forever to fill but for long term longevity it's a must.




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Too many issues.
just in the city of orange the tds in their water report is 1000 ppm


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Drain it and refill it with RODI water, not just RO water.

You will be thankful 2-3 months down the road that you started that way. :) Don't rush anything, do it right!
 
I used tap water for a FOWLR tank many years ago. Later I decided to use the rock in it for a reef. I like to never got the phosphates out of that rock! It took weeks of massive water changes. The longer calcareous rock is exposed to tap water the more pollutants it takes in, and the harder it will be to get "clean." Do not put that live rock in tap water!
 
Tell us EXACTLY whats in your tap water and we can answer..
But without that its a total guess and thats just useless..

Your tap water could be totally fine.. Or it could have toxins/elevated metals,etc.. in it to some extent or another..
Not all tap water is equal..

Even knowing a TDS number is really useless.. A non zero number just means there is some kind of solid dissolved.. Doesn't mean its bad and doesn't mean its good..
 
Psychomantix said:
Maybe you should check the TDS of your tank water then. I bet it's way over 9000.
Click to expand...

Interesting to note, I have never measured SW since I have already removed the good and the bad through RODI, then just put back the good, so I know that what goes in my system is all good...
 
I have always used tap water to cycle in the past and always end up with massive algae out break. The latest tank I set up was a month or so again and I used all RODI water and so far I don't see any sign of algae besides a little film algae on the glass. It took a full day to fill that 150+ gallon but s o far it's worth it


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I think tap water (run through carbon to remove chlorine ir chloramine should be fine especially if you plan a major water change after cycling the tank.
I have been cycling,my rocks with tap water for the last month (in the dark)
The tap water is from the Missouri River. A fair amount of nitrate and phosphate,but it just wasn’t worth spending the time to collect or to do the cycling
 
Psychomantix said:
I'm sure my current tank water has TDS over 9000. I'm sure yours is too. Does that mean that it's bad?
Click to expand...

I would hope it's in at least the 9000 range, the salts and minerals in your salt mix will raise it to at least that high, but I don't see how the TDS reading of saltwater has anything to do with starting off with RO/DI water before you add your salt mix.
 
nematode said:
I think tap water (run through carbon to remove chlorine ir chloramine should be fine especially if you plan a major water change after cycling the tank.
I have been cycling,my rocks with tap water for the last month (in the dark)
The tap water is from the Missouri River. A fair amount of nitrate and phosphate,but it just wasn't worth spending the time to collect or to do the cycling
Click to expand...

But why would you want to add phosphate and nitrate to your rock, if you didn't have to?

:confused:

Kevin
 
Many reefers are now dosing nitrates to stimulate coral growth and coral.
And more and more reefers are seeing very little correlation between the health of their system and phosphates. And many reefers are using lots of supplements Mn, Mo, etc(Triton, etc) to increase color.
So why pull out all the phosphate, nitrates, and ionic elements by purifying the water using RO/DI just to add it right back by feeding lots of food-which adds lots of phosphate, and dripping nitrates? So I am simply trying to do my whole system using simple carbon filtration of water to remove chloramine and organics.

To cook my old rock (which I pulled out of my old tanks and just put directly in my backyard when I left for europe for 6 months), I figure that immediately, there would be lots of decomposing of all sort of things left on the rock which would create huge amounts of ammonia>Nitrites>nitrates, release all sorts of phosphates, and immediate make the water much worse than my tap water. That is what happened. Whether I started the cycling with RO/DI or tap would have made virtually no difference in what happened to the water through this cycling.

That is my reasoning.
 
nematode said:
To cook my old rock (which I pulled out of my old tanks and just put directly in my backyard when I left for europe for 6 months), I figure that immediately, there would be lots of decomposing of all sort of things left on the rock which would create huge amounts of ammonia>Nitrites>nitrates, release all sorts of phosphates, and immediate make the water much worse than my tap water. That is what happened. Whether I started the cycling with RO/DI or tap would have made virtually no difference in what happened to the water through this cycling.

That is my reasoning.
Click to expand...

You have a unique situation. IMO, cooking your rock in a dark container filled with SW might be better than a straight cycle. And yes, a 100% water change at the end of it all.

Good luck!

Kevin
 
That is essentially what I am doing. It is actually in a tank, but in a dark room.
Has been running for about a month. Ammonia has long since peaked.
 
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