Help with water and RO/DI

[RyanMcLaughlin]

I just setup my 100 gallon tank about a week and a half ago and am on a budget so I didnt use RO water. I just used tap and used the water conditioner you can buy. How will this effect my tank and if I buy and RO unit and use it for water changes will it eventually all become RO water? Any advice would be appreciated.

 

[Legacy2005]

between water changes and top offs the ro water will replace the tap water over a period of time. just keep up on the water changes.

 

[atvdave]

If your only going to keep a fish only tank then you may be ok as long as you keep hardy fish.

But if you plane on keeping corals then I would say no. You may have cooper, and other metals in your tap water that the water conditioners just can't get out.

 

[SteveNMegz]

We started with using tap water and water conditioner and then did the water changes with RO water and now we just use Ro water and weve never had a problem yet (knock on wood) lol

 

[RyanMcLaughlin]

Well I had wanted to keep a BTA and some leather corals and stuff but not for a while. Since I am on a budge I dont want to spend 40 bucks on a coral until im sure it will live. After a few months of just using RO water hopefully I will be ok. Is there a way to test if I have copper?

 

[atvdave]

There are some copper test kits but I'm not sure on how good they are.

One-thing I would do is run a lot of carbon filtering. Carbon will take out some metals but I'm not sure on copper.

It's best to ask this question in the chemical forums, just be ready for some people to say how you should never add tap water to a aquarium. Just take it all with a grain of salt and don't be afraid to ask. Everybody's tank is different.

Randy in the chemical forums can help a bunch.

 

[RyanMcLaughlin]

Ok well I have two canisters with carbon and other stuff to take chemicals and whatnot out so hopefully that will help. I will post this in the chemical forum.
Thanks.

 

[Aquarist007]

using tap water increases the possibility of adding phosphates to your tank--these are the food for algae

 

[csdoyle]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11585887#post11585887 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by RyanMcLaughlin
Ok well I have two canisters with carbon and other stuff to take chemicals and whatnot out so hopefully that will help. I will post this in the chemical forum.
Thanks.

If you are depending on carbon, be prepared to replace it often, even weekly I am told. Some believe it looses effectiveness in less than a week depending on your coral stocking. Mixing soft corals and SPS corals can create a good deal of chemical warfare that saturates carbon quickly. Look to buy it at bucket qty's.

Go for RO/DI water for sure. There are some great easy to install systems on Ebay. Better to use RO/DI water late than never.

Cheers,

Chris