RO unit

[adam robinson]

I am very new to this forum and to a salt water/reef tank, however i am totally not new to fish keeping. I have never used an RO system however after reading a ton it seems this is the way to go for the setup of my new tank.

#1) is this absolutely neccesary?
#2) If so where would i buy one and what are peopel using?


Thank you in advance for your help

 

[TORX]

1) Absolutely necessary - no. Absolutely strongly suggested to help avoid many different issues - YES!!! IMO, RO/DI is 100% needed as treated tap water can lead to several issues right from initial set up to down the road issues. Also, with a good RO/DI unit, you know exactly what is in your tank and it helps diagnose issues. Salt water is not nearly the same as fresh water tanks.

2) I have BRS 5 Stage PLUS RO/DI System - 75GPD $199.99 and worth every penny.

 

[Poseidon]

There are many online.
People really like the brs filters

The reason to have them:
You know exactly what's going into your mix up saltwater- 0tds- so many problems such as nitrates, p04, etc are taken out of the equation before they even become a prob.

A must have in my opinion, even though I ran a tank for almost a year off of 400 TDS water, but ask salty cracker about this. It causes the tank to crash eventually.

 

[GirDance]

I have friends who use tap water in their salt water tanks successfully, however, they are very knowledgeable and probably pay more attention than I want to.

I personally decided to buy a RODI from BRS because they are priced well and have good reviews (I went with this one:  BRS 5 Stage Chloramines PLUS RO/DI System - 75GPD  because KW area uses chloramines). 

I have a whole house carbon filter that gets a lot of the nasty stuff out of the water, but I decided to go with an RO/DI because at least this way I always have a consistently stable water source to start with.  Unfortunately with tap water you can have drastically different water chemistry depending on the time of year, how much rainfall there's been etc, with an RO/DI you should have consistent water to use as your starting point. 

The only way to always know what's coming out of your tap is to test the water before it goes in the tank and who wants to do that?  My tap water in down town kitchener used to come out of the tap at a PH of 8.8 one week, and 8.0 the next - it was crazy, my cichlids didn't mind it all, but my shrimp didn't do as well as they should have.

 

[adam robinson]

thanks so much for the help. Best place to buy one in K/W would be?

 

[unibob]

Look into royal aquariums. They are local and would have it at your door in a few days.

 

[adam robinson]

thank you

 

[TORX]

Re: Re: RO unit

Look into royal aquariums. They are local and would have it at your door in a few days.

+1 I always forget about them

Sent from my SGH-T989D using Tapatalk 2

 

[reeffreak]

I have friends who use tap water in their salt water tanks successfully, however, they are very knowledgeable and probably pay more attention than I want to.

I personally decided to buy a RODI from BRS because they are priced well and have good reviews (I went with this one:  BRS 5 Stage Chloramines PLUS RO/DI System - 75GPD  because KW area uses chloramines). 

I have a whole house carbon filter that gets a lot of the nasty stuff out of the water, but I decided to go with an RO/DI because at least this way I always have a consistently stable water source to start with.  Unfortunately with tap water you can have drastically different water chemistry depending on the time of year, how much rainfall there's been etc, with an RO/DI you should have consistent water to use as your starting point. 

The only way to always know what's coming out of your tap is to test the water before it goes in the tank and who wants to do that?  My tap water in down town kitchener used to come out of the tap at a PH of 8.8 one week, and 8.0 the next - it was crazy, my cichlids didn't mind it all, but my shrimp didn't do as well as they should have.

No offense but those tap water tanks will have issues sooner or later. A knowledgable reefer wouldn't be using tap water. Just so we don't the steer people down the wrong road, usin tap water is a BIG NO NO !!

 

[Salty Cracker]

Well, you theoretically CAN run a tank on tapwater... hell a softie tank can thrive on the runoff from a rendering plant.  An sps tank would be a bit harder.  I still say there is a 6 year MAX on a tank not crashing on tapwater.  Probably 4 to 5 in some areas.  I mean, you could run non stop GFO, pellets and carbon, swap it out every week, skim wet, but every water change brings in ?? who knows what.

I used tap water, I had hair algae and tons of slime.  I now use RO/DI and I never see anything remotely related to HA or slime.  Not a lot of elite players in the game running tapwater.  I have a hard time thinking guys not using RO/DI are 'very knowledgeable'.  However, what do I know

 

[reeffreak]

Well, you theoretically CAN run a tank on tapwater... hell a softie tank can thrive on the runoff from a rendering plant.  An sps tank would be a bit harder.  I still say there is a 6 year MAX on a tank not crashing on tapwater.  Probably 4 to 5 in some areas.  I mean, you could run non stop GFO, pellets and carbon, swap it out every week, skim wet, but every water change brings in ?? who knows what.

I used tap water, I had hair algae and tons of slime.  I now use RO/DI and I never see anything remotely related to HA or slime.  Not a lot of elite players in the game running tapwater.  I have a hard time thinking guys not using RO/DI are 'very knowledgeable'.  However, what do I know

I agree salty, sure you can run a tank from tap but it will never be successful.
Which is why I say just do it right the first time, if you have the information infront of you and knowledgable reefers like this forum has, there should be no reason to use tap water, especially if you want a thriving tank like darrylv, or anyone with a successful tank on this forum.

if you can't afford the rodi system and that's the reason then hold off on setting up a tank until you have one. Starting with tap could be the start to a huge headache, it can all be avoided.

Sure fish will live and so will coral but the point isn't to keep them alive, it's to let them thrive in our home made Eco systems,  and unfortunately tap water will not let that happen.

 

[AdInfinitum]

I ran fish only and invert tanks, such as they were, for many years (city of London tap water is/was very neutral) and am as low tech and low budget as you can be in this hobby.  That said...as soon as home R/O units became available and semi-affordable I got one and would never do without one again. The difference in tank stability and consistency is that noticeable.

 

[adam robinson]

Thank you so much for the advice went out got myself a system and set it up running great and have two homemade holding tanks for the water then running a small pump to help with water changes, an airater and a heater in the holding tanks is this correct?

 

[dale]

looks like you r all set... as long as your holding tanks are glass, acrilic or food grade plastic..

 

[adam robinson]

I was told at a LFS that the large rubbermaid containers are fine, if this isnt the case let me know

 

[sunnykita]

I was told at a LFS that the large rubbermaid containers are fine, if this isnt the case let me know

There has been some discussion in the recent past about holding tanks and plastic leaching, I'm sure someone will jump in with some info for you
sunnykita

 

[reeffreak]

I would use something other than a Rubbermaid, I had to toss mine because I found it was leaching phosphates. I just use 20 gallon tanks now, it will be the. Hearst option. I went and looked at TSC for there big food grade containers and they were ridiculous in price. 179.99 for a 25 gallon container. So I stuck with glass tanks.

 

[Salty Cracker]

I had a blue rubbermaid and it would put ~80ppm of phosphate into the water if it sat more than 3 days.  It was worse than pouring tapwater in (london's tapwater is very low in phosphates depending on the time of year).

I found white ones at lowes that don't leach at all, but of course they stopped selling them right after we found them. 

 

[Can Reefer]

Look on Kiiji you can find good deals on them and I found one for forty bucks with almost brand new filter cartridges

 

[sunnykita]

I use a 25 gal tank for storing rodi water in - easy peasy ! no worries !