please help! tap water w/dechlore for reef?

[jakeeg78]

hi everybody im new to this website and im in the process of setting up a 10 gallon reef with led lighting im from the sacramento area, and have looked at the water quality report for my area and I don't know which of the elements are harmful and how much is fatal anyone want to help me? if you want to look at the water report heres the website http://portal.cityofsacramento.org/utilities/resources/reports its the first link under reports. the files a pdf and it shows the mineral and metal ppm/ppb of the water.

[CronicReefer]

Never ever use tap water for any aquarium. Just get distilled if you do not have LFS with water that you can trust. The nitrates in your water alone (45ppm) are at level that is considered unsafe for aquariums regardless of what other elements are present.

[Fnard]

Full disclosure, I didn't bother reading the report, but as a general rule of thumb, tap water is a poor choice for reef use. Will lead to algae blooms, at a minimum. Ideally you would want to use RO/DI water, but if thats not avail or dont have a unit, distilled would be the next choice.

[Begow]

Full disclosure, I didn't bother reading the report, but as a general rule of thumb, tap water is a poor choice for reef use. Will lead to algae blooms, at a minimum. Ideally you would want to use RO/DI water, but if thats not avail or dont have a unit, distilled would be the next choice.

 

 

100% agree. Go RO/DI or don't go at all.

[cju84]

Meh, distilled is totally fine to use.

 

Also, you can't trust your LFS water either. Always be safe and test before adding to your own tank!

[BulkRate]

Water quality report's good for determining if you need to spec a RODI unit to handle chloramines, sizing the sediment filters & carbon block and estimating how often you may need to replace them (and if buying new I'd toss the report and just go for a chloramine-capable model) but the reading on what comes out of your tap's the final say on the matter.

 

For filling a tank that size and maintaining a sensible 20%-ish weekly change rate you can buy a loooooot of steam-distilled water for what annual filter/resin replacement will run (just a wild guess - your mileage may vary). Now to be fair you SHOULD periodically ask yourself - if you're likely to upgrade in the next 6 months to something larger than about 20 gallons/75 liters the economics start to change to favor getting said rig.

 

I ran my 9 gallon off a Zerowater pitcher for the first year or two of its life... worked fine until I likely slacked on replacing the cartridge a month or two (even though it read "0" tds there was likely stuff getting through, especially once the carbon gets older & small DI portion gets exhausted).

 

I don't think I would have even gotten that far using just plain dechlorinated tap. It may work, but the problem is that nobody form the Public Works comes to your door to say "we're digging a few streets over upline from you and just flushed a weld - don't use the tap water for your reef for a few days..."

 

Edit/PS: Gah! Begow's avatar is coming for me! Man, that thing is creepy.

[GHill762]

for a 10g tank I'd just go with distilled.. don't use tap water.

[afyounie]

You will find the majority of people here will say get a RO/DI unit or at least use distilled. I recommend getting a RO/DI unit just because you can make your own water at home. There are some that use tap water with good results, but I think this is dangerous if you are just starting out. You still have a lot to learn about saltwater chemistry and don't need the unstable parameters of tap water making it anymore difficult. I strongly recommend against using tap water, but that is my opinion. I had a crash recently because I was basically using filtered tap water when my RO membrane died. Not a good time at all.

[aviator300]

100% agree. Go RO/DI or don't go at all.

WHOAA...How did my mama get into this site

 

[jakeeg78]

thanks guys appreciate all the feed back. my problem is I don't have wheels to get to the lfs to get rodi so ill prolly have to go with distilled

[jikiya777]

An Rodi unit isn't terribly expensive or difficult to install and you don't have to worry about getting out to get water in an emergency or bad weather.

 

Good luck whatever your decision is.

[BulkRate]

I'd choose distilled over lfs RODI in most cases. Steam distilled is about as pure as it gets and several times the local fish store's water would read 1-3 on even a cheapo tester. To which they'd say it was still "pretty good".

 

Not was was being paid for, though... for 75c to a buck per gallon + hassle of managing containers I expect "excellent". Plus the distilled water's only 38 cents a gallon here.

[AZDesertRat]

If your LFS will test the TDS of their RO/DI in your presence it would probably be less expensive at 25 to 50 cents a gallon on average than jugs of distilled water from the grocery at 89 cents to a buck. RO/DI is preferred over distilled since distillation can sometimes carry contamiants in with the steam. Either one though is much better than tap or RO only water for a reef.

[BulkRate]

If your LFS will test the TDS of their RO/DI in your presence it would probably be less expensive at 25 to 50 cents a gallon on average than jugs of distilled water from the grocery at 89 cents to a buck. RO/DI is preferred over distilled since distillation can sometimes carry contamiants in with the steam. Either one though is much better than tap or RO only water for a reef.

 

Such as? Not to call into question the Water God, but more for curiosity's sake... what impurities actually DO routinely show up in grocery store chain's steam distilled water aka Walmart "purple top" etc at levels that could be of concern for the health of our tanks? I assume anything from copper or trace metals from older distillation setups and potential leaching from holding tanks/containers.

 

That said I've used the DI product of a Whole Food's on-premises filtration system (tests clean for copper, 0 TDS on admittedly a bargain-bin tester) as well as the occasional jug when it wasn't possible to get to one store or another for the past year to significantly more consistent & better results. Always test, but perhaps this wings in below the levels that can be readily detected.

[12_egg_Omelette]

I started using mili-q water from the molecular biology lab I work in.

[AZDesertRat]

Volatile Organics can travel with the steam and be condensed back into the treated water. Its not normally huge amounts and good carbon can catch a lot of it in pretreatment but when they are making thousands of gallons a day out of huge stills it can and does happen.

 

Most modern distillation systems are glass or epoxy lined exotic metals like titanium. Copper hasn't been used in years but you never know with smaller producers. Almost certainly it will be better than tap but a good well maintained RO/DI with quality resins and membrane can produce true 18.2 megaohm resistivity pure water.

[BulkRate]

Thanks for the clarification, azdesertrat.