RO or tap water?

PCKRAJ

PCKRAJ

New member
Time for me to replace my RO cartridges and am thinking about using tap water instead - looking for feedback as I believe some of you use tap.

My thought was to fill my 32 gallon barrel and wait a week or so for the chlorine to dissipate before adding salt. Thoughts - recommendations????
 
I would check it to see what the TDS is and for phosphate and nitrates at the least. Just remember that it is easer to keep algae away than it is to get rid of it. I had TDS of 10 to 14 out of my RO DI for about a month and contemplated the same thing before it started popping up all over the place and now I’m paying the price and trying to get rid of it.
 
Just my opinion but its just not worth it in the end. You already have the setup so your only looking at the cost of buying the replacement filters. Unless of course your tap water is kicking out 0 TDS.
 
I've heard some folks run tap with great success. all I know is that when my DI filter died I had an algae problem shortly after.
 
Dpends on what makes up the hardness of your water, and how often you do water changes. If you just replace evaporative loss with tap, overtime those ions will become concentrated in your system.
I have done it both ways, I don't think I would ever do it with my sps tank.
 
I have a triple filtered tap system and I only use it to bathe, drink and kill corals. My TDS run at 150 w/o RO/DI. I accidently used tap water and killed 50% of my corals within 3 months.

I recommend good water.
 
do you need a new RO membrane?

do you need a new RO membrane?

PCKRAJ said:
Time for me to replace my RO cartridges
Click to expand...
micron filter cartridges and carbon blocks are cheap- the only expensive replacement filter in a RO unit is the RO membrane itself.

TRS gets away with using tap because they perform HUGE regular water changes with it.

Like Mark already posted, topoffs and small percentage water changes with tap will usually end up causing an accumulation of undesirable substances.

Can one use tap in a reef aquarium? "Yes"

Would I recommend it? "No"...unless you're willing to do large regular water changes
 
Using Tap Water in a reef aquarium is (IMO) a hasty idea, regardless of those who claim to have success in doing so. While someone in Rochester may have a TDS of 30, yours can read much higher; the only way to know is via testing.

High levels of Phosphate can leach into your live rock and cause severe algae/bacteria blooms, heavy metals can kill corals/invertebrates, and hard water can cause issues when mixing salt (just to name a few).

We spend thousands of dollars on precious livestock and countless hours caring for our aquariums- why risk all of that at the sake of a few filter cartridges? Again, just my opinion of course!
 
IMO and IME! RO RO RO RO RO RO RO RO RO RO RO RO :wildone: I would not use TAP unless it had an extremely low TDS level. As you can see though people do use TAP, soooooo....but you wanted my opinion. Reverse Osmosis all the way!!:bounce3:

As Johnny said it can read in different areas. Syracuse City water reads a TDS of about 175-210, my well water not filtered reads 450 *Yuck*. Also depends on the plumbing of the house, if it's a new house, better plumbing, old school house the plumbing may be old and rotting, you'd have to worry about all those variables.
 
I will be ordering my cartridges and membrane today. As some of you already know, I check nothing and dose nothing - just change about 30 gallons of water (150 tank w/ 75 sump in basement) at least once a month.

Some of you are probably gasping right now - but all my fish and coral are doing great. Tank has been established almost 2 years. I really don't know what I'm doing 'right', and I hate to admit it, but if I had to do more than what I'm doing, I'd probably not be in the hobby.

Maybe someday I'll get into all that other stuff and my tank will be even better.

Thanks for the advice on RO - I'll stay with it
 
the hobby likes to make things very complicated. using quality water,salt,light and flow and good stuff usually happens. start messing with the big four, and it's usually a matter of time.
 
I'd worry about impurities in tap water including: phosphate, nitrate, silicate, ammonia,copper and other toxic metals, etc. Personally I use ro/di. and keep tds at 0.
 
PCKRAJ said:
I will be ordering my cartridges and membrane today. As some of you already know, I check nothing and dose nothing - just change about 30 gallons of water (150 tank w/ 75 sump in basement) at least once a month.

Some of you are probably gasping right now - but all my fish and coral are doing great. Tank has been established almost 2 years. I really don't know what I'm doing 'right', and I hate to admit it, but if I had to do more than what I'm doing, I'd probably not be in the hobby.

Maybe someday I'll get into all that other stuff and my tank will be even better.

Thanks for the advice on RO - I'll stay with it
Click to expand...
"better" is subjective.

IMO/IME if a person tries to do more than they're capable of and things become a burden they will try and lessen the load and either simplify or get out. I think the choice to continue using RO water is a wise one.
 
PCKRAJ said:
I will be ordering my cartridges and membrane today. As some of you already know, I check nothing and dose nothing - just change about 30 gallons of water (150 tank w/ 75 sump in basement) at least once a month.

Some of you are probably gasping right now - but all my fish and coral are doing great. Tank has been established almost 2 years. I really don't know what I'm doing 'right', and I hate to admit it, but if I had to do more than what I'm doing, I'd probably not be in the hobby.

Maybe someday I'll get into all that other stuff and my tank will be even better.

Thanks for the advice on RO - I'll stay with it
Click to expand...

I am in the same boat, except I only do water changes roughly once a year. Everything does amazing.

Only one time did I have a crash and it was because my DI media stopped working and my TDS readings were 150 after a 4 month period. I didn't know until a fellow reefer came over and checked my RO. It is coming back now, but I will be more vigilant with my RO/DI filter replacements.
 
I used tap for probably a decade before I even knew what RO/DI was. It worked fine for the most part, but of course it's kind of like playing Russian Roulette - you never know when or where you're going to get a BANG instead of a click.

If you're considering this to save money on cartridges and/or to save the waste water, I'd consider a few options:

1) Use RO/DI for topoff and tap (treated with chlorine remover or passed through sediment and carbon filters) for water changes. Water changes inherently "balance" because you're removing water AND salt/waste/nutrients as part of the process. Meanwhile, topoff pretty much HAS to be as pure as possible because you're just replacing pure water - any impurities will inherently build up over time unless you have a surefire way to remove them.

2) Run your RO/DI only in large increments - i.e. run it once a month to fill two trashcans, then use one for water changes and the other for topoff - instead of letting it run every day to make half a gallon of topoff water. This will extend the life of the membrane and the DI, as well as increasing the purity of the water that is produced.

3) Ditch the RO membrane and just run one or more very large DI cartridges after your micron and carbon filters. Depending on your source water, this can produce product water that's just as clean, but there's zero waste produced AND you can regenerate DI resin, so the only expense is cheap micron and carbon filters, which will last 3 - 4 times LONGER than they do in front of an RO membrane because they're not filtering water that's eventually rejected by the membrane! There are even DI-only systems with facilities to regenerate the resin in-system but these are very expensive upfront.

4) Ditch the tiny carbon and sediment filters at the front end of your RO unit, and instead get larger carbon and sediment canisters meant for whole-house filtration - these are generally expensive upfront but in the long run are much lower cost in terms of money per gallon treated. It's probably common to change hobby-sized sediment and carbon prefilters after a few hundred gallons of treated water but larger units may go many thousands of gallons but may only cost twice as much.
 
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