Tropical Fish Forums

[saltguy07]

so I'm pricing everything up and reading up on salt and reading some more lol, and I cam across some stuff here and there bout using R/O water for it is that really needed I've know a couple people that just use city and declor it, wonderng if u guys have any thoughts on it

thanks

[Pete Harcoff]

It depends. For tanks with livestock that requires fairly pristine water (SPS, inverts), you'll likely want to go with RO. For less demanding tanks (I.e. FOWLR, more tolerant corals), you can probably get away with tap water depending on how "clean" it is.

The main benefit of using RO water is it strips out nitrates, phosphates and silicates that can contribute to algae growth.

If you can afford it, I'd highly recommend it.

[SLACkra]

I actually know of some one down here in melb whos a member of MASOV who dosen't use RO and dosen't do water changes! protien skimming and a dsb(might have a refugium but I can't remember) are how she keeps the tank going. I believe she also grows sps. however its quite a mature system and I wouldn't recomend some on trying to do the same.

in reallity you could just have a refugium and let the macro and preferabliy micro(micro aglae grows faster and is generally easier to grow) algae take up the phosphates and nitrates.

its just a way of making sure your not introducing phosphates and nitrates but if you have methods of removing them in the tank then it really shouldn't be a problem. why not just use tap water and see how it goes. also would be a good idea to test your tap water for nitrates and phosphates.

andrew

[unissuh]

Don't forget to check other factors besides phosphates, nitrates and silicates...

...calcium/magnesium and alkalinity come to mind, as does copper (pipes?).

I admit I'm guilty of topping up the 40L nano with dechlorinated tapwater, wouldn't say I have anything particularly sensitive in there though and the tap water is pretty soft and devoid of anything else as far as I can tell. No problems so far, but there is always the chance some pollutant in the tap water could come through.
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[NevadaS.]

One other thing thing to consider in tapwater is chloromine and if your dechloronater addresses this. From personnal experiance I used well water which is plumbed with PVC(gotta watch for copper w/ inverts) in my 55 gal. mini-reef and my phosphates went thru the roof causing an excessive aglae outbreak of various species. I switched back to RO/DI. Phosphates build up in your tank from other sources as well, so it is prudent to use some type of phosphuros filter in a reef tank.
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[FloridaBoy]

Saltguy07, you're getting good advice from everyone here
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Keepin' marines happy for 25 years