Is the water from the Ocean safe?

[KatilicaClavijo]

Hello everybody.. As I have told you before I am upgrading my Tank. However, some questions have come to my mind. My previous tank was a 55gallon I was filling it with water from the ocean. In my Fish store locally they sell the water from the ocean, the collect the water and then bring it to the store. Can the MarineIch come in that water (The water collected from the ocean)???? Since one of my fishes got ICH and I have move it to a QT.. now I am planning to start my upgrade. I have cured my rock with chlorine etc.... to make sure I don't bring the parasite to my new tank. However, my mind keeps running and running should I use water from the ocean or distilled water with the sea salt mixed????
Also are the instruments infected too?? like the pitcher?? all the instruments?? should I put everything in chlorine??? But if I put everything in bleached water, it will get impregnated with chlorine, specially the plastic things... Should I buy new instruments???
Any ideas? Thanks:worried:

 

[Breadman03]

From the main forums page, go to the illnesses page. The stickies explain Ich far better than I can. I have seen many people here prefer RO/DI water. Most of their reasoning seems to be potential contamination in NSW.

 

[TL1000RSquid]

IMO your better off with a RODI unit, you can get a decent one for under $200. If you are going to use NSW you want to collect it couple miles off shore, less risk of contaminates farther off shore but still run the risk of bringing in bad hitchhikers.

 

[FragIt Dan]

NSW will contain viruses and possibly other parasites which may not be native for some of your critters. It may also contain elevated levels of phosphate and other undesirable things. It bodes well the store endorses its use, but we all know LFSs are not always the best source of info. If others are using that source of NSW in the same application as your desired setup (i.e. SPS tank vs FOWLR) and have been doing so for a while I would say you MIGHT be ok. I work at a marine biological research station that has deep water NSW intakes (i have access to unlimited free NSW) and I will only use RODI ASW for all of my tanks, but I am keeping sps in all of my systems.

 

[thegrun]

Many many years ago when decent salt water mixes were difficult to impossible to find I used to collect water several miles off shore. It was standard practice back then to store the collected ocean water for at least 6 weeks to allow all parasites to die off before use. That said, I've used RO/DI water and salt mixes for many years now. Quality mixes are safer and are higher in calcium and alkalinity than what I could collect in our local waters, a much better way to go if you plan on keeping corals. For a fish only tank ocean water would be fine although I would run it through a UV light or store it for 6 weeks before adding to your tank.

 

[BigBoi5680]

Interesting......never even thought about this!