Is RO water necessary?

[Dani3d]

HI,

 

I have been in freshwater for a long time and now I am interested in doing a 20 gallon nano reef setup.

 

I used to have discus and was using lots of RO water and doing daily water change but I now sold my RO unit and not very interested in starting that agian. It was a pain and expensive waste of water too.

 

My tap water is quite soft with 120ppm, so can I just use that with my salt mix?

 

Also I do not have distilled water for sale around my place, only source water which is much harder than my tap.

 

Thanks a lot.

 

Dani

[SBDTHRU]

HI,

 

I have been in freshwater for a long time and now I am interested in doing a 20 gallon nano reef setup.

 

I used to have discus and was using lots of RO water and doing daily water change but I now sold my RO unit and not very interested in starting that agian. It was a pain and expensive waste of water too.

 

My tap water is quite soft with 120ppm, so can I just use that with my salt mix?

 

Also I do not have distilled water for sale around my place, only source water which is much harder than my tap.

 

Thanks a lot.

 

Dani

 

I used distilled water to fill my tank. What I've heard about that is distilled has absolutely nothing in it. So your mix is the only source of minerals and stuff. This may not be completely true but its what ive heard. I'm not quite sure what the upsides of using RO water is, so a more experienced member will have to chime in on that note.

[BLoCkCliMbeR]

ill keep it short a simple

 

yes

[CSoli921]

^^^^ He meant that RO is necessary, not that you can use tap water with salt mix.

[BLoCkCliMbeR]

let me rephrase a bit.

 

if you plan to grow coupious amounts of cyano, hair algea and diatoms, then no RO/DI is not necessary

 

if you plan to have a nice thriving reef, then yes it is

[Warehouse41Ant]

Yeah, there are going to be a lot of answers. Most of the people on this site will tell you that you need RO/DI water. That is certainly the best option. Any tap water (or untreated water) is going to have both nitrates and phosphates in it which are going to give you algae problems. No way around it. This water will also be unsuitable for many corals.

 

If you want to constantly battle algae problems, use tap water. I speak from experience on this. I don't typically use RO/DI water in my 4 month old tank. All of my coral is happy, fish are happy, I have 0 ammonia, nitrite and <5ppm nitrate. What I do have is constant algae and cyano problems. I decided to skip on the RO/DI setup at the start, and I pay for it every week when I do water changes. It' not worth it, especially when for $150 bucks you can get a Specrapure system which is supposed to be top notch.

 

Long story short, you can keep (for the most part) a salt/reef system with regular water, nothing will die from it (except really sensitive fish/coral...SPS). The problem is what you WILL be providing life for, and that is algae.

 

Oh, and coming from a freshwater guy, the algae problems you're used to will be nothing compared to what you'll get on this side of the hobby. It will literally take over your tank. Not in a month. In a week, sometimes in a matter of 2-3 days.

 

Good luck! Get an RO/DI system!

[psykobowler]

It really depends on where you get your tap water. I use rodi but can get away with using tapwater if I wanted to. I know at least two lfs that uses tap water in my area. Soft coral and lps corals can thrive in tap water. I wouldn't recommend tap on sps corals.

[Dani3d]

My tap water does not have any nitrates as I tested that already. I do not have currently any algea problem in my frontosa tank so I guess it's also low in phosphate.

 

So no nitrates is really not a problem as the concentrate is absolute 0 in my tap. There is no chloramine either, only chlorine which evaporate in few hours as the concentration is also low.

 

Any way to test phosphate?

 

Also what in the tap water can kill coral? Any other polluant or substance that I must check before using it?

 

My nano would be 20 gallons so I would need 2 to 3 gallon per week to do the water change.

 

The RO/DI unit that I had cost me 99$, but I sold it when I sold my discus. It's not that it was so expensive it's just that it's a hassle and I would rather do it without if possible.

 

I just want to make an informed decision about this and to know if a nano reef is really for me.

 

thanks a lot for all the good advises and response.

 

 

 

 

Yeah, there are going to be a lot of answers. Most of the people on this site will tell you that you need RO/DI water. That is certainly the best option. Any tap water (or untreated water) is going to have both nitrates and phosphates in it which are going to give you algae problems. No way around it. This water will also be unsuitable for many corals.

 

If you want to constantly battle algae problems, use tap water. I speak from experience on this. I don't typically use RO/DI water in my 4 month old tank. All of my coral is happy, fish are happy, I have 0 ammonia, nitrite and <5ppm nitrate. What I do have is constant algae and cyano problems. I decided to skip on the RO/DI setup at the start, and I pay for it every week when I do water changes. It' not worth it, especially when for $150 bucks you can get a Specrapure system which is supposed to be top notch.

 

Long story short, you can keep (for the most part) a salt/reef system with regular water, nothing will die from it (except really sensitive fish/coral...SPS). The problem is what you WILL be providing life for, and that is algae.

 

Oh, and coming from a freshwater guy, the algae problems you're used to will be nothing compared to what you'll get on this side of the hobby. It will literally take over your tank. Not in a month. In a week, sometimes in a matter of 2-3 days.

 

Good luck! Get an RO/DI system!

[vresor]

120 ppm of what? Is that TDS, calcium or what? Regardless, a few ppm of phosphate (which most POTWs add for corrosion control) will earn you a nice crop of algae.

[Rockfish]

short and sweet.....use RO/DI water or buy distilled or you will have nothing but issues with your tank

[callmesaul8889]

i'm going to jump in on this as well. I use RO/DI water(i still have algae problems), but I just met a guy who has a beautiful coral farm in my area, and upon asking if he had an RO unit, he just said he used our areas tap water.

 

so i came home and tested my tap water for nitrates and phosphates.. nitrates at 0 and phosphates were equal to the reading from my RO/DI water(i couldnt tell if the readings were 0 or .5ppm as they were very similar)

 

what else should i test for? also, the guy told me to bottle some tap water and take it to the city to test.. what should i be looking for to know whether i can use tap without consequence?

[Dani3d]

I will buy a phosphate test and test my tap water to see if it contain any phosphate.

 

I am not sure what is in my water as my meter test TDS, total dissolved solid.

 

I have a test that do the GH and KH and and that was respectively 6 and 4.

 

If you use RO water, why do you have algea problem still? Why do people using RO water still have this issue?

 

 

I am

i'm going to jump in on this as well. I use RO/DI water(i still have algae problems), but I just met a guy who has a beautiful coral farm in my area, and upon asking if he had an RO unit, he just said he used our areas tap water.

 

so i came home and tested my tap water for nitrates and phosphates.. nitrates at 0 and phosphates were equal to the reading from my RO/DI water(i couldnt tell if the readings were 0 or .5ppm as they were very similar)

 

what else should i test for? also, the guy told me to bottle some tap water and take it to the city to test.. what should i be looking for to know whether i can use tap without consequence?

[BLoCkCliMbeR]

Also what in the tap water can kill coral? Any other polluant or substance that I must check before using it?

 

copper and other metals

[violinist]

i'm going to jump in on this as well. I use RO/DI water(i still have algae problems)

 

Isn't your tank just a couple days old though?

[callmesaul8889]

If you use RO water, why do you have algea problem still? Why do people using RO water still have this issue?

 

 

I am

 

this is why i'm slightly confused

 

i'm getting red slime, and a small amount of brown. also the bubbles in the sand, don't remember what that's called, dynos or something.

i have plenty of flow, and unless i shoot my koralias at the sand, it's still growing

 

i'm going to get our water tested soon and maybe have a comparison between it and RO/DI

 

Isn't your tank just a couple days old though?

 

nope, 5 months, i just moved everything into a new tank

[roy91079]

RO/DI water doesnt cure algae problems but without it you have a huge battle on your hands. Take the advice you have recieved here from some very experienced nano reef members and get yourself some RO/DI water however you can!!!

[vresor]

Dropper test kits product unreliable results and even a few tenths of a ppm of phosphate will fuel some pretty impressive algae growth. That said, if your phosphate (from tap water) equals your phosphate out (from snails, emerald crabs and the like eating the algae that assimilates the phosphate), then tap water is fine. Unless of course you have a few hundredths of a ppm of copper. That will wreak havoc with invertebrates. Is your house plumbed in copper?

[Dani3d]

Yes copper is very toxic, but not sure it's in there either. I use Seachem to treat my water and this is supposed to neutrilize any heavy metal.

 

I had invertebrate before and they were very healthy, no problem with my tap there. They were freshwater shrimp but very sensitive to copper.

 

But yes a lot of the plumbing is in copper.

 

I am not sure if saltwater people use water conditioner like Prime? Or if there is any drawback of using it in saltwater?

 

I am checking the RO unit but it will be my last resort for sure.

 

I was also thinking of using a protein skimmer on my 20 gallon and I have read that with this I could do only water change every 2 weeks? Then I could probably buy distilled water.

 

How does that sound?

 

This is all very exiting and at the same time...SCARY!

 

 

 

copper and other metals

[callmesaul8889]

Dropper test kits product unreliable results and even a few tenths of a ppm of phosphate will fuel some pretty impressive algae growth. That said, if your phosphate (from tap water) equals your phosphate out (from snails, emerald crabs and the like eating the algae that assimilates the phosphate), then tap water is fine. Unless of course you have a few hundredths of a ppm of copper. That will wreak havoc with invertebrates. Is your house plumbed in copper?

 

yeah, the phosphates i checked werent even from the tank. i checked the tap and couldnt tell if it was 0 or not, so i checked some of my bottled RO/DI water and it was exactly the same color.

 

I will have to check on the copper

[Dani3d]

Yes me to...Tomorrow first thing I will go at my LFS and buy a phosphate and copper test to check all this.

 

Any other test should I buy?

 

yeah, the phosphates i checked werent even from the tank. i checked the tap and couldnt tell if it was 0 or not, so i checked some of my bottled RO/DI water and it was exactly the same color.

 

I will have to check on the copper

[hahaximmaxfish]

What about well water? Im just wondering beacuase I heard that theres NOTHING in it. True? False?

[violinist]

You need the phosphate test regardless, but if you are going to buy copper and other test kits for oddball stuff I would think it's going to very quickly add up to the cost of a small rodi unit. Just putting that out there.

 

How about take a 5g bucket to a LFS once a week to get water?

 

Just seems like why start off with a big unknown (wtf is in my water) when you're going to be dumping a thousand bucks into the tank anyway.

[Jacobnano]

False. At least where I live well water can be pretty bad. Leaching is a problem.

[hahaximmaxfish]

False. At least where I live well water can be pretty bad. Leaching is a problem.

Hmm..

Yeah I v'e got friends that live in the middle of nowhere and they have well water. I was just wondering if it would work. Guess not. Thanks!

[callmesaul8889]

You need the phosphate test regardless, but if you are going to buy copper and other test kits for oddball stuff I would think it's going to very quickly add up to the cost of a small rodi unit. Just putting that out there.

 

How about take a 5g bucket to a LFS once a week to get water?

 

Just seems like why start off with a big unknown (wtf is in my water) when you're going to be dumping a thousand bucks into the tank anyway.

 

^ this is what I do, i go to walmart and fill up one of my 3 5g bottles every other week. it's like $1.82 per refill(dont ask me why i know that)