Sea water anyone ?

northbay-reefer

northbay-reefer

New member
I just spoke with the UC davis marine lab in Bodega bay http://www-bml.ucdavis.edu/geninfo/index.html

About the possibility of us getting Sea water from the lab and they told me that they are selling it for 5 cent a galon :D :D , but we will need to call ahead and let them know that we are coming.

Anyone interested ? and have a truck ? maybe we all can chip in for gas and go out there together one day to get some sea water to try out?

a gallon of salt water weighs 8.556 lbs. so depending on the payload of a truck
 
Frsfrme Cool, is it possible for me to get my hand on a couple of those 50 gal drums ? I cant seem to find nice clean ones around this area

Clayspst, great. There are couple fo guys in the club with big trucks too, once we get a group together I'll call and make the arrangement
 
Do you know how they handle or process it?

I think it would be neat to get some plankton for filter feeders. Since the temps don't match up, it's doubtful that that cold water critters would take hold in our tanks.

Best of luck,

Roy
 
i would be up for the trip. You pay close to a dollar a gallon in the city at fish fish and more fish. I have been told that they use a high speed uv process to kill parasites.
 
Hell yeah. $.05 per gallon is a hell of a lot cheaper than the LFS prices. The cheapest I can get it is $.75 @ All About Fish in Martinez.

Has this stuff been flashed through a UV sterilizer, and are they getting the water from far enough of shore to lessen the chance of contaminates?

You know what would be nice, is to have everyone chip in, have a place with a couple of 300g containers to store it and then the Northcoast Reefers could come in and get what they need when they need it. We could show our secret badges or give the special handshake.
Does anyone know a place where that could happen?
 
There are serveral ways to sterilize sea water, we can use ozone, UV or chlorine. ... Yeah It would be nice to have a big storage tank ... kinda like a seawater banking system :D:D

At this price, I might go for a bunch of 5 gal containers to make it more manageable
 
Do they filter through micron cartriges or U.V.'s before they sell it?
There are draw backs from using Natural sea water. Many organisms can make the trip. These organisms can be harmless but warming them up and giving them lots of light can cause problems i.e. algae or bacterial blooms. The water from our coast is considerably different from the indo pacific reefs or even from southern california. A natural process called upwelling happens at our coast by which cold nutrient rich water is brought to the surface by the wind currents that are blowing the surface water away from the coast causing the cold nutrient rich water to be pulled to the surface. That is why our coast is so rich with life. So I would recommend testing the water before putting it in your aquariums. Another problem is that the buffering copacity of natural sea water is exusted very quickly.
If you use it airate it or mix it it least an hour or two before using it. Better if it is left over night with an airstone or powerhead.
One way to make sure that no critters make it into your tank is by keeping it in the dark for a couple of weeks before using it.
Ask the people at Bodega marine lab if they are growing Indo pacific corals more specifically SPS. Check out their tanks and see if they are free from algae blooms. I think that Natural sea water would be great if you had a fish only system. But for my Reef tanks I like to have control of what goes in them.
After my big rant I am still intrested in trying it out.
But check out their tanks. Just Because they have degree doesn't mean that they are successful reef keepers or know how to keep things alive (No offense Chris B.).
 
Martin Moe has a great chapter on this in his book "The Marine Aquarium Handbook, Beginner to Breeder"
New Edition, Revised & Expanded 1992

If anyone would like to read it, I would loan it out, just take good care of it.
 
Its looking like we got alot of interest, we got trucks, we got containers .... so now we just need to figue out a date to do this.

I dont think they open on weekend, so it will have to be during the week. They do offer public tours on Friday from 2-4pm so that might be a good time for us to go out there. How about next friday @2pm ?
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=9536839#post9536839 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by coralfarmer
Do they filter through micron cartriges or U.V.'s before they sell it?
There are draw backs from using Natural sea water. Many organisms can make the trip. These organisms can be harmless but warming them up and giving them lots of light can cause problems i.e. algae or bacterial blooms. The water from our coast is considerably different from the indo pacific reefs or even from southern california. A natural process called upwelling happens at our coast by which cold nutrient rich water is brought to the surface by the wind currents that are blowing the surface water away from the coast causing the cold nutrient rich water to be pulled to the surface. That is why our coast is so rich with life. So I would recommend testing the water before putting it in your aquariums. Another problem is that the buffering copacity of natural sea water is exusted very quickly.
If you use it airate it or mix it it least an hour or two before using it. Better if it is left over night with an airstone or powerhead.
One way to make sure that no critters make it into your tank is by keeping it in the dark for a couple of weeks before using it.
Ask the people at Bodega marine lab if they are growing Indo pacific corals more specifically SPS. Check out their tanks and see if they are free from algae blooms. I think that Natural sea water would be great if you had a fish only system. But for my Reef tanks I like to have control of what goes in them.
After my big rant I am still intrested in trying it out.
But check out their tanks. Just Because they have degree doesn't mean that they are successful reef keepers or know how to keep things alive (No offense Chris B.).
Click to expand...

James, werent you used to use Catalina island sea water for the corals holding tank and swore by it when you used to work at Ceasar ? I think as long as we filter the water ourselves before we use it then it should be good right?
 
Yes, we used real ocean water but it was a different company out of Southern California. They Filtered it before we bought it. The only thing that would test high would be the silicates on occasion depending on the time of the year.I battled lots of brown diatom algae I am sure you have seen it when you were in the store.

But we are talking about water that is from our coast not s.cal Hopfully it will be fine after it is filtered. I'm willing to try it on my fish only system.
I just put this out there for the new reef keepers that might not have your expertise and knowledge. So they can avoid some of the pit falls that we all went through when we first started our tanks. Tom you would have an amazing reef tank even if you used lava rock, rainbow gravel, topped off with toilet water and used candles to light your tank.
 
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