So you say tap water is no good? Hmm..

A properly maintained RO/DI unit gives you consistency above all else. With tap water you have absolutely no control of the quality and it does change, often rapidly and for the worse. Not using RO/DI is irresponsible when you have untold $$$ wrapped up in tank inhabitants.
 
Here's a question...
I was told my my water supplier that I have RO/DI desalinated tap water. My new TDS meter measured at 90... but I haven't gotten it calibrated....
So, how bad is that for water from the tap?
 
As far as TDS readings that pretty good. The problem is TDS is not a measurement of specific contaminants, you have no idea what makes up that 90 ppm TDS reading. It could be all copper, nitrates, silicates, phosphates and combination of all of the above or something entirely different. TDS is an indicator only. It tells you there is something electrically conductive in your water but not what it is.
Would I drink it, probably so. Would I put it i my reef tank, definitely not.
 
I use a Kold Ster-il system to remove chlorine but wonder how tap water users keep chlorine levels down. Would you need to avoid massive water changes?
 
I had a sps tank with great growth when I was using well water from my parents house. I moved the tank to my wifes (was girlfriend then) house and lost most everything. Not saying everyone should do it but like I said before, not all water is created equal.
 
<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=11636242#post11636242 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by Randy Holmes-Farley
softies love crappy water but try keeping anyhting worth something

A little bit of an SPS snob, eh. :D
Click to expand...
:lol:
 
pjf, I would imagine that they use something like Prime, etc. However, not sure how well or long that sequesters chlorine/chloramines.

I just got back my LR and a friend's who is getting out of the hobby for a while. All he did was take a garden hose to his sump and fill it up.
Weird thing is, he had a lot of brownish felt like algae on the glass, but not much others. Besides the hundreds of aptasia, he had a fair number of LPS, softies, and gorgonians. Didn't seem to bother the fish and crittiers much, but didn't see a lot of growth in his corals. I think they survived primarily because of the dual 250 MH 3 inches off of the water. I think his water is probably 100 TDS or thereabouts.

Since I took everything, and am running it on RO/DI, I expect to see a real bounce back with better water conitions and regular supplementation. Unfortunately, I'm taking almost all the base rock out and doing a straight bleach on it tomorrow. I am not kindding when I say there are literally hundreds of aptasia. No way I'm gonna spend weeks/months trying to kill them with Joes Juice.

The guys at a new LFS in town just told me about how they used one of those bio-spira fast cyclers for a new display and it seemed to work. We'll see how it does on the new dead LR.

Whoops, OT.
 
Well, a couple of reasons.

First, those suckers are expensive.
Second, I don't just have a problem, I have an infestation. All of the rock is from a friend who's getting out for a while, and many of the rocks have 20-30 on each. We're talking easily 100-200.
Third, to make any dent in them I'd probably have to order 10-20 or the aip's would simply keep up with them.
Even with most of the base rock out, and only of the remaining ~20 rock/frags, there are probably....

OK, my wild guess was way off.
One football plus sized rock with a large colony of zoos and a kenyan tree and some other LPS on it has about 50+ on it alone.
Several other rock/frags have 30-50 each.
Have a couple of more rocks under a PVC tier holding the corals up top that I haven't been able to reach yet, and they also have 30-50 each, with some pretty large ones.

So the rock I took out probably had 200-400 on it.

I will order some of the Beghia's once I have the tank stable, and while the other rock is cycling. I just need to figure out what to do with the scarlets and blue-legs as I think the'll decimate the Berghia's. Will have to move them to a small QT tank I guess, as there is no real way to get all the aip's growing through the colonies.

Oh yeah, friends top-off was garden hose to the sump.....

15652infestation.JPG
 
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I have been using tap water for about 3 years now on my reef tank. However I get to consider my self very lucky. Once upon a time my tap water was about 15 ppm. But now I really don't bother with RO water, as my tap water is RO. The city water supply has a massive RO plant online to deal with "runoff" water issues.
I am considering adding just a DI filter to deal with the 2 ppm that I get now.

So, I guess I'm in the uses tap water and RO water category.
 
i'll have to go back and finish reading the rest of the pages but the subject caught my attention.i ran my 29 gallon softy tank for a couple years before moving it all to a 55 with lps sps and softies.i have never used anything but tap water.my tap water reads at 534ppm tds which is supposed to be over the limit for human consumption.my tank is beautiful and thriving at 11 almost 12 months now.the water authority has it at 250ppm tds when it leaves but somewhere before it gets here there must be a leak and dirt is getting in the water.i've checked my meter with them and my lfs.best we can figure is that whatevers in the water is'nt harmful.i kind of wonder if all this excitement over rodi water may be just another thing to sell people who are scared their tank will crash.i have various types of monti,pavona,hydnopora,echinophylia,brains,mushrooms,cabbage,xenia,toadstools,gsp,trumpet ,ect.
t5 lights 29 sump with chaetto a regular prizm skimmer,some carbon,a plenum.i guess i'll post some photos later.
 
ok i just got a water analysis on my tap water that i've been using and here is what they found.
calcium 92ppm
magnesium 18ppm
sodium 26ppm

p.alkalinity 2ppm
total alkalinity 32ppm
chloride 65ppm
sulfate 106ppm
nitrate 0.99ppm
nitrite 0.05ppm
iron 0.014ppm
total manganese 0.023ppm
chlorine 0.3-1.2ppm
total hardness 110ppm as CaCO3
total hardness 6.4 grains/gal as CaCO3
fluoride 1.0ppm
lead <0.001ppm
specific conductance 369 micromhos/cm
ph 8.3-8.5
turbidity 0.05ntu
color 1 apha units
total dissolved solids 534 ppm


now i did have a hair algae problem when i started but it passed,i did nothing but wait till it slowly went away.i grow a gallon of chaetto a month so i figure thats what killed the algae off.i'll post better pics of the sps later.
 
could someone please show me a tank that died from tap water?i've be warned but i would really like to know of it actually happening.
 
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