Questions about mixing salt: Cleaning buckets and using tap water

W

Weboh

Member
I have a ton of 5 gallon buckets that I've been using for yard work. They have dirt and dust and stuff in them. I'd like to use them for mixing the saltwater. How would I go about cleaning them? Just rinse them out? Clean them with a non-toxic cleaner like Simple Green?

The box of the Instant Ocean salt I have says that I can use tap water or regular purified water (though RO water is recommended). Is using tap water actually practical? I know that when I kept a freshwater tank, I filled up a bucket and let it sit out overnight to let it stagnate, which I'm told is better than just using it right out of the tap. Probably not practical with saltwater though, right? I also have something called Prime that is used to lower nitrates and says it can make tapwater usable in tanks. Does this really work either? Or am I better off with RO water any way?
 
Quick answer, always better with RO water. I've been using five gallon buckets with reef crystals and tap water with Prime and sitting overnight, and my levels are overall stable. As far as washing the buckets, I would use water and a clean rag to wash out the buckets. I wouldn't use simple Green though. just my opinion, but others May differ.

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Just give the buckets a good cleaning and dry out. You could use tap water, I wouldn't recommend it due to chemicals or other stuff. Algae will start up in your tank. Haven't use prime others might, I'd rather use RO/DI water
 
Rinsing them out with tap water is fine, although you might want to use a brillo pad or something similar to really scrub them first.
 
I rinse with regular water and let dry. If something needs cleaning the only thing I'll use is a vinigar/water mix.
 
IMHO, you should get new buckets and save the yard buckets for the yard. Unless you live in a Nature Preserve (or Hippy Commune:D ) there is no telling what chemicals might linger in them. New buckets are all of $5ea at HD. Mark them as FISH ONLY. You can also collect buckets buying salt mix. I have about 10 that get used ONLY for the fish.

And do yourself a favor - spring for a ro/di system and miss out on all the fun that tap water brings with it - Nitrates, Phosphates, Chlorine or Chloramines, heavy metals, etc.

Prime can be used to neutralize ammonia in an emergency but should not be a first line defense against tap water.

In the old days, when you left a bucket of water out overnight, it was not to stagnate. What you did was allow the chlorine to off-gas naturally. I did it that way for many years until I got smart and stopped with the tap water.
 
Get an RO/DI first thing! Get it before a skimmer even! And id suggest new buckets, you can get away with just getting 2 right away even, and around my area, theyre only $2.5
 
billdogg said:
IMHO, you should get new buckets and save the yard buckets for the yard. Unless you live in a Nature Preserve (or Hippy Commune:D ) there is no telling what chemicals might linger in them. New buckets are all of $5ea at HD. Mark them as FISH ONLY. You can also collect buckets buying salt mix. I have about 10 that get used ONLY for the fish.

And do yourself a favor - spring for a ro/di system and miss out on all the fun that tap water brings with it - Nitrates, Phosphates, Chlorine or Chloramines, heavy metals, etc.

Prime can be used to neutralize ammonia in an emergency but should not be a first line defense against tap water.
Click to expand...

Dito, ...just not worth it given the price of a new five gallon bucket.
 
OP, you are in Florida, right? Find somebody who does pool maintenance and get a couple of 7g buckets (with thread on lids) that chlorine tablets come in. They are big, have great lids, are clean with a simple rinse and most pool maintenance people will give you the buckets. My local pool cleaner gave me 5 buckets right off his truck when he was doing a neighbor's pool.
 
I would go out and buy new buckets from home depot, make sure you get the white food grade ones. I originally got the blue buckets from lowes we had 6 of them because we had to move shortly after we set up our 30 gal tank and within a year all but one got huge cracks in the bottom of the bucket and became completely useless.

I know everyone blindly recommends RODI water and really it is the safest most reliable choice since tap water varies so much by location- but in reality not everyone has a few hundred dollars to drop on an RODI unit, and given how expensive everything else is in this hobby even if you have the money there might be something else higher on your priority list. If you have well water, I would make an RODI unit a priority unless you take your water to get tested frequently and can reliably determine what's in your water it's just not worth the risk. If you have city water your city should produce water quality reports that will tell you what it in your water and you can use this to determine whether or not it is safe to use in your aquarium, for example some cities have some concentration of iron, copper or lead in the water, and while these are in concentrations low enough that it's not a risk to you drinking the water it could become an issue in your aquarium as water evaporates and you top off the aquarium with more tap water the concentration of those minerals increases.
 
AnnaCassandra said:
I would go out and buy new buckets from home depot, make sure you get the white food grade ones. I originally got the blue buckets from lowes we had 6 of them because we had to move shortly after we set up our 30 gal tank and within a year all but one got huge cracks in the bottom of the bucket and became completely useless.


I know everyone blindly recommends RODI water and really it is the safest most reliable choice since tap water varies so much by location- but in reality not everyone has a few hundred dollars to drop on an RODI unit, and given how expensive everything else is in this hobby even if you have the money there might be something else higher on your priority list. If you have well water, I would make an RODI unit a priority unless you take your water to get tested frequently and can reliably determine what's in your water it's just not worth the risk. If you have city water your city should produce water quality reports that will tell you what it in your water and you can use this to determine whether or not it is safe to use in your aquarium, for example some cities have some concentration of iron, copper or lead in the water, and while these are in concentrations low enough that it's not a risk to you drinking the water it could become an issue in your aquarium as water evaporates and you top off the aquarium with more tap water the concentration of those minerals increases.
Click to expand...

You can get a decent rodi from many places for under $200. I got mine from www.buckeyehydro.com for less than that and it was custom built by them so that I could use it for my icemaker/water in the frig. I really don't think that, considering the investment in both money and time, that skimping on this is a very good idea. I used tap water for years (20+) and struggled with algae and cyano problems for the entire time. I always just thought it was a seasonal thing, and in a way it was. When there was a big rain, I would get an algae issue within a couple weeks. Turns out that all the nitrates and phosphates in farming runnoff would make their way into the local water supply, and because the "allowable" levels are much higher than what is needed to fuel an algae outbreak, that's what I'd get. Even an inexpensive ro/di unit will solve that problem for you.
 
Once again I have to agree with billdogg.

Given the amount of money we spend on EVERYTHING in this hobby, an RO/DI is just an expense we need to live with. I bought my first RO/DI used for $75 and it only needed basic filters, not a new membrane. Today I use an RO/DI with two 24" long RO membranes that makes 30gph (720gpd). I bought it from a friend getting out of the hobby. It was only $200. Just take your time and shop carefully.
 
Thanks for the advice everyone. I wasn't really planning on using tap water but I wanted to know if I could if I needed to and why the filter was needed. I'll keep on buying RO water from my LFS for the short term and will be looking at getting an RO/DI. It also feels kind of silly buying more buckets when I already have like 20 but I'll do what I have to. Saving $10 on buckets isn't worth something possibly being in them and killing $200 worth of livestock.
 
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