I was just curious what sorts of things people here do logistically to prepare their water, both for topoff and salt mix purposes. I'm reworking my prep setup, and I wanted to get a sense of what people have liked or disliked, or recommend: a sort of set of best practices and time-saving tips. I'm most interested in the basic process you go through to create fresh and saltwater.
Some of the basic issues/differences are: do you keep your fresh water for topoff in a separate container from where you mix your saltwater, or do you just make fresh water into one container and then mix in buckets (only feasible for small systems, but this is what I do since my system is small and I'm not yet allowed to drill through the floor/walls
)? If you use two containers, do you plumb them together to make it easier to fill both, or just fill them separately?
Do you have your water containers on a table and gravity drain/siphon into buckets, or do you have them on the floor and actively pump water out? (I've been doing the former, but I want to upgrade to two bigger containers for fresh/salt, and I'm not sure the table I have will hold em). If you have all this going on in your laundry room (as I do), do you have any special precautions for keeping things like detergent dust away from your water equipment? How obsessive are you with trying to avoid any sort of contamination of plumbing or water from things like equipment touching the floor, other non-fish friendly things in the basement (like my basement sink, which has had all sorts of nasty toxic stuff in it over the years)
If you make purified water with an RO, RO/DI, or DI filter, how long do you aerate it for and how (airstones, powerhead, etc.)? What ph does it come out of the filter and what do you do (if anything) to buffer it for either a) topoff or b) prior to mixing saltwater? How long do you keep the mixed saltwater around for before use (I usually do about 24 hrs.)? If you use an RO, RO/DI, do you heat the water going into the RO/DI to improve it's efficiency?
As I upgrade my process/equipment, I'm most concerned about things like always getting my topoff correct so that I don't drain my alkalinity. The water I make generally has a low ph to start with, and I have to work from there.
I know that some people buffer topoff water with baking soda, but others treat alk problems in tank with two parts, and others drip kalk into the topoff water.
I'm sure someone has asked these things before, but the search function won't work for me, and I figured it would be interesting to see the diversity of strategies that people use to make this process streamlined and/or best for the health of your tanks.
Some of the basic issues/differences are: do you keep your fresh water for topoff in a separate container from where you mix your saltwater, or do you just make fresh water into one container and then mix in buckets (only feasible for small systems, but this is what I do since my system is small and I'm not yet allowed to drill through the floor/walls
)? If you use two containers, do you plumb them together to make it easier to fill both, or just fill them separately? Do you have your water containers on a table and gravity drain/siphon into buckets, or do you have them on the floor and actively pump water out? (I've been doing the former, but I want to upgrade to two bigger containers for fresh/salt, and I'm not sure the table I have will hold em). If you have all this going on in your laundry room (as I do), do you have any special precautions for keeping things like detergent dust away from your water equipment? How obsessive are you with trying to avoid any sort of contamination of plumbing or water from things like equipment touching the floor, other non-fish friendly things in the basement (like my basement sink, which has had all sorts of nasty toxic stuff in it over the years)
If you make purified water with an RO, RO/DI, or DI filter, how long do you aerate it for and how (airstones, powerhead, etc.)? What ph does it come out of the filter and what do you do (if anything) to buffer it for either a) topoff or b) prior to mixing saltwater? How long do you keep the mixed saltwater around for before use (I usually do about 24 hrs.)? If you use an RO, RO/DI, do you heat the water going into the RO/DI to improve it's efficiency?
As I upgrade my process/equipment, I'm most concerned about things like always getting my topoff correct so that I don't drain my alkalinity. The water I make generally has a low ph to start with, and I have to work from there.
I know that some people buffer topoff water with baking soda, but others treat alk problems in tank with two parts, and others drip kalk into the topoff water.
I'm sure someone has asked these things before, but the search function won't work for me, and I figured it would be interesting to see the diversity of strategies that people use to make this process streamlined and/or best for the health of your tanks.
