Tap Water And Only Tap Water.

[videosilva]

I experimented over the last six months using purified water that I was buying at Sobys. After six months I have found no difference. The corals actually look worse !@!!!


So, now I am back to using tap water and only tap water. I fill a bucket with water right out of the tap, ad some MAGIC water conditioner and in it goes. No water changes, just top off as needed.

 

[Skim]

Yes there are a few on the Forum that use nothing but Prime and Tap and very successful. I myself have wondered or thought of just getting pure salt and mixing with water as Brantford water is very hard and has High Cal. and Mag. levels and a PH of 7 to 8. I have tested the water with Hanna Phosphorus test and was surprised at a 0 reading and I remember that Nitrates was well within Drinking standards. I do use an RO/DI unit because mix a fresh batch of saltwater is a pain because of the High Cal and Mag in the water you will get precipitation. The times to be careful is after a heavy rainfall and in the spring with the runoff and of course as like now when the heat is high because of algae blooms and bacterial blooms they will does heavy with the Chlorine and Chloramine and yes Brantford use Chloramine. You could always get a RO unit for making fresh Saltwater for water changes and just use regular tap for top up. In the end it is whatever works for oneself, most battle Nitrates and Phosphates and there are some that are adding it because their levels are too low so go figure.

 

[heath]

when I started with my first salt water tank I used tap, I didn't know what prime was, my fish were extremely healthy and the only adverse reaction I had was feather/micro dusters.. I would take the rock out every 6 months to clean them off.. now, when I started using ro water, holy crap that was another story, po4 leaching out of the rock, I had the longest and prettiest gha that anyone has ever seen...

 

[TORX]

Lots of people have very successful tanks with conditioned tap water. IF you do run into issues down the road though, it will be difficult to know what the issue is unless you have a full spectrum test kit or send water away for analysis. It also matters where you live. Different counties have different acceptable water levels and you have no idea what is being absorbed by the rock until the rock is saturated and the metals have no where to go but choke out corals. That also leaves the rock technically un-sellable, but seeing that you would have no idea that there was an issue with metals in the rock, the next person who buys the rock will have unknown issues.

I personally use RO/DI just for the knowledge that the water I am putting in my tank has 1 to less then 1ppm of anything. Water from my tap is over 250ppm, sometimes as high as 450ppm, and I do not know what metals are in that 250ppm.

 

[heath]

totally agree, I have said before and I will say again if you are going to the expense and trouble to set up a tank, GET A MENTOR.. I made every mistake known to man and I think a few that haven't been discovered...with this hobby you never stop learning and for people that think they know it all, its time for them to get out of the hobby..IMO