SW Newbie-water quality ?'s

[helidude]

Hi all,

 

I just bought a via aqua 15 gal set-up. 17lbs of LR and crushed coral. It's only been up and running for a few days.

 

I have been known to really get into my hobbies. My wife says too much. I say,never enough.

 

My water test are as follows;

 

ph 8.6

alk high

ammonia foggy white-off the scale

nitate 5.0ppm

nitate .02ppm

SG the needle is buried on the high side

 

Obviously this tank is not ready for livestock. I live in town and used tap water. I also used Instant Ocean salt mix. My temp is stable at 78 degrees.

 

Should I leave this alone,or should I add something to help the stablization process along?

Thank you in advance.

[jdsabin1]

Originally posted by helidude

.... I live in town and used tap water.

 

Red flag. Have you tested your water parameters? I can't tell you enough how many posts I've read all over the internet about people using tap water in their tanks and wind up with an algae farm that they can never get rid of. Chlorine, phosphates and other nasty stuff live in tap water.

 

I strongly suggest you switch to RO/DI water asap. Why take chances on the fundamental ingredient that your reef tank will depend on?

 

Take a look at some algae tanks and it will scare you straight in a hurry.

 

Good luck!

[helidude]

So your saying to drain the tank and buy distilled water and start the process over?

 

I do not have a RO set-up as of yet. I'm into doing things right. It's a shame after all the reading I've done that no one has said dont use tap water!

 

I fact,I've read the opposite many times. The statements have been,all the chemicals will die off in short time using tap water. Even nano reefs site says nothing about what water to use.

 

Thanks for your help.

[jdsabin1]

No you do not need to start over. I would do water changes though over the next several days to try and get as much RO/DI water in there as you can. Do you have an lfs store close that sells it? If you want to get a unit at home, make sure you are getting the whole RO/DI system and not just the RO stuff.

 

As a sidenote, Seabass here at Nano-Reef was using some water at a WalMart that is a 'station' where you can get refills that claimed to be RO water. After some testing it had nitrates in it because the water system either had a dirty membrane or a module that wasn't installed to take care of that and he couldn't figure out why he had such high nitrates when he was just starting out.

 

Tap water (unless you live in an area that has very clean/pure H2O, a rarity) is the worst thing you can do when you're just starting a reef tank.

 

Algae and tap water go together like PB&J. Do some more searches and you'll see what I am talking about. I can't imagine any article worth it's salt (excuse the pun) that would recommend using water from the tap. That's insane.

[helidude]

Would I be better off buying SW from my LFS for .75 a gal?

Cheaper than buying DI water.

 

Thanks again.

[jdsabin1]

No, and if you can't buy RO/DI water cheaper than that, you need to look harder. I can buy it at my lfs for .50/gallon and that seems to be pretty standard fare.

 

If you want to shortcut, WalMart Distilled (purple cap) is very good water to use at .58 cents a gallon I believe. The *only* problem with that water is you can't be sure if it has been distilled with copper of any sort. Copper and invertebrates do not go well and in fact means death to those critters. WalMart's distilled doesn't tell you whether that's the case or not but a lot of people had had great success with that water.

 

HTH!