Where do you get your water?

[less than bread]

So admittedly I have been running my 13.5 gallon tank using tap water and adding a water conditioner in the few months it’s been going. I was able to have a conversation about this with a worker at my local reef store since I know serious reefers use RODI water and he literally looked like he was about to faint when I told him I was running tap water and adding a conditioner and insisted I must use RODI water.

 

I got a small RODI system and hate it. I have to run it on a spigot outside since none of my indoor faucets have threads to screw into and I don’t have time to wait 8 hours to get a few gallons of water.

 

I’m wondering what you guys think about this. Is he right that I am dooming my tank by thinking simply adding a water conditioner to tap water is okay?
 

Honestly things are going fine so far. My 2 clowns have been in this tank for a couple months and act normal. Great color and are very lively. My corals include GSP that is spreading, a blasto that honestly I think might be dead (it’s hard to the touch and hasn’t changed/spread since I got it almost 2 months ago), a torch that looks happy, and a cristata I just added.

 

further, I’m fully aware using RODI water is best, so regardless if conditioned tap water is okay I’m planning on making the change (just need to know how fast I need to make this change if I indeed am killing everything). Where do you get your water? Do you buy premade RODI/Salt water or do you make your own? If it’s the latter, how? Because I’m fully disappointed in the RODI system I bought.

[blasterman]

I refuse to buy bulk RODI water because there's no quality standards. If your tap water is regarded as safe to drink then RODI water made with old filters is safe to drink.

 

LFS and grocery stores are the worst. Several in my area have tested for high TDS not much better than tap. Do not trust RODI bulk water unless you personally know the owner of the store.

 

I have low water pressure and gave up on RODI as well. 

 

I keep glass on my tank and since its only a 20gal I lose less than a gallon a week to evap. A gallon a week of bottled distilled fixes the problem, and I know its pure. I know the rage right now is rimless tops with lots of evap and a gun to your head to get a plumber and an RODI unit. I will cover with glass thank you and save money and run my tank how I want. Not to mention we have areas of the country that are living in denial about water conservation.

 

I add some tap water to my tank because I need some phosphate and trace silicate,  My tank is not typical though and most of the time I would not suggest tap.

[Clown79]

I always used distilled water until i got my rodi unit.

 

I would never use tap water unless it was an absolute emergency.

 

You can buy adapters to fit the rodi to your indoor faucets.

 

It really shouldn't take 8 hrs to make a few gallons of water.

[gena]

I have had RODI systems in the past but don't feel like dealing with that bulky setup now when I do infrequent water changes on a pretty small tank (Fusion 10).  I decided I would just get my water from the LFS.  I was told it's a 5 stage RODI system.  Awesome!  Fantastic!  Got home and my TDS meter registered 45 ppm when testing this fabulous water.  My tap is lower than that LOL.  What the heck?

 

Anyways...I've decided to just used distilled from the grocery store down the street.  .80 per gallon and I buy 3 for water changes, and a couple extra for evaporation, every month.  With a small tank this works great for me.

 

  

[blasterman]

Brings up another pet peeve of mine, and that's the water change cult in general. 

 

My 20L is crammed wall to wall with fast growing SPS and I dont do water changes. I keep my bioload light, dont over feed and hence dont have nitrate issues. Spare me the trace element nonsense. Water changes do not reset your tank to default. Want to melt zoas? Do aggressive water changes and keep stripping nutrients . If getting source water is a pain here's a concept: back off water changes to a more conservative schedule. 

[Murphs_Reef]

40 minutes ago, blasterman said:

Brings up another pet peeve of mine, and that's the water change cult in general. 

 

My 20L is crammed wall to wall with fast growing SPS and I dont do water changes. I keep my bioload light, dont over feed and hence dont have nitrate issues. Spare me the trace element nonsense. Water changes do not reset your tank to default. Want to melt zoas? Do aggressive water changes and keep stripping nutrients . If getting source water is a pain here's a concept: back off water changes to a more conservative schedule. 

Yeah man..I did a water change at 10% weekly for a few weeks when I moved my livestock over from a nano to my larger tank. It didn't do anything but made me feel better 🤣, I took the sand and didn't spend the time to clean it well so had a nasty job to reduce the n and p numbers as well as deal with GHA and cyano. Once sorted I left water changes behind.

 

I don't have much SPS. Loads if LPs and soft coral so not over worried about calcium or magnesium being used up at the moment. 

I buy RoDi though from my local marine specialist. I TDS him all the time (he laughs at me) and it never reads above 2ppm.. at £1 for 25 litres it lasts 2 weeks as my ATO reservoir is 9 litres and have perspex lids I put over the rimless at night, sump is always covered so little evaporation happens... 

I can't use tap water as I live in stoke so when I open the tap, moist stone falls out lol ..

 

Never ever water changed a nano though.. couldn't be arsed to mix the salt...

[Clown79]

I started out doing waterchanges at the suggested levels.

 

What a bad move. I struggled with keeping nutrients and that wasn't with a small bioload.

 

After i suffered dino's, my waterchanges were every 2 weeks and 10% only.

 

I think waterchanges are good, especially for inexperienced reefers but frequency/volume should be based on individually tank needs.

[Jakesaw]

RO/DI in Laundry room sink.  

 

I didn't want to be nickled and dimed + hauling water back and forth from store.  Pays for itself in a years time even with my 10 gallon.  A few times I had to be a wholesale water swap and the convenience of always having 5-10 gallon of pure water is something i wouldn't be in the hobby without.

[mpugh]

I bought a RODI unit when I swapped to a larger tank. I can get 50L in about 5 hours. I always start gathering my water 1-2 days before I need it and I always keep about 15L spare. Before that I bought RODI water from lfs, the unit has already paid for itself in about 4 weeks

[Murphs_Reef]

1 hour ago, mpugh said:

I bought a RODI unit when I swapped to a larger tank. I can get 50L in about 5 hours. I always start gathering my water 1-2 days before I need it and I always keep about 15L spare. Before that I bought RODI water from lfs, the unit has already paid for itself in about 4 weeks

That's a lot of water changes right there 

[mpugh]

20 hours ago, Murphych said:

That's a lot of water changes right there 

I do between 15-20L a week, I also use the spare RO then to top up my RO reservoir 

[Murphs_Reef]

26 minutes ago, mpugh said:

I do between 15-20L a week, I also use the spare RO then to top up my RO reservoir 

Is there a particular reason for that?

[mpugh]

The water change or topping up the reservoir? 

1 hour ago, Murphych said:

Is there a particular reason for that?

 

[Murphs_Reef]

1 hour ago, mpugh said:

The water change or topping up the reservoir? 

 

The water changes. Is it a new tank? 

Seems a lot to swap out 

[fishez4alivin]

I have my RODI for convenience, since I would rather not have to drive out to some water vending machine, or my LFS where both have been inconsistent in their water quality.  My system is too big for under the sink, so I mounted it on hardboard, and screwed it near the garage door.  I then connect it to my spigot, and run the waste to some plants.  You can use a brute 20G trash can and install a float valve kit for $12 and be good to go.  It will shut off on it's own so no need to monitor it's progress. 

 

But if space is a problem at least you know that your current source has been working out.  No need to change if you don't have issues from using it.  A lot of people use tap water, if they didn't, there wouldn't be so many products to treat it.

[mpugh]

22 hours ago, Murphych said:

The water changes. Is it a new tank? 

Seems a lot to swap out 

It’s a total system volume of roughly 220L so about 10%. I’m currently fighting GHA so as I siphon that out, water comes with it 👍🏻

[Murphs_Reef]

2 hours ago, mpugh said:

It’s a total system volume of roughly 220L so about 10%. I’m currently fighting GHA so as I siphon that out, water comes with it 👍🏻

Ahh I see!. Yeah gha is a pita. 

[Ratvan]

For all those in teh UK its worth seeing if you can find a Spotless water somewhere near you

https://www.spotlesswater.co.uk/aquarium

 

[WormLicker]

Have you checked the city water parameters for where you live?

I can't speak for everyone, but where I live the water is almost pristine. For example, here brewers just carbon filter it and it's good to go. 

I started my tank on conditioned tap and I'm changing it out with RODI over time. My tap water is fortified with calcium and magnesium, so one day it'll probably be useful to me. 

[less than bread]

2 hours ago, WormLicker said:

Have you checked the city water parameters for where you live?

I can't speak for everyone, but where I live the water is almost pristine. For example, here brewers just carbon filter it and it's good to go. 

I started my tank on conditioned tap and I'm changing it out with RODI over time. My tap water is fortified with calcium and magnesium, so one day it'll probably be useful to me. 

My city's water is really bad. So much so that at times we receive alerts saying "don't take a shower for a few hours while we fix something." I was pleased to find I can get 10 gallons of RODI water free every Thursday from my local reef store so that's more than enough for my little tank. I've been working it in over the last few weeks and I dose calcium and magnesium.

[Kindanewtothis]

I started with tap water as you did. Then I was told here (thanks you all) to get a Ro/Di or to use distilled water.

 

I have a 50g, I use distilled water from walmart. 16L for less than 4$... but I got to carry it around...

[3ricNanoGuy]

I'm planning on RO/DI for a new tank I'm planning but I'm curious if tap water connected to a whole house carbon system and softener is "safe" for reef aquariums?

[horseysurprise]

RO/DI seems better, my new setup is just at my bathroom sink, and I'll run it with a bucket in the tub. That goes into one container for fresh and one for salt water.. will soon graduate to 2 salt containers just in case of emergency. It's not a big deal if you're hanging around the house one day out of the weekend, or if you really wanna do it right, have a floater attached to an on/off valve.

Tap water with seachem (or whatever conditioner) is good for tank startup but itll hurt corals and the more sensitive critters. I tend to trust the guys who have been doing this for a while..

[banasophia]

I used quite a few different sources in my first year: distilled, premixed from my LFS that has good tanks, Imagitarium saltwater from Petco, and NutriSeawater before I had three tanks. Now I use a 7 stage filter from BRS. 
 

@gena, thought I’d mention once I got some high tds RODI from my good LFS and he explained it was because he uses rinsed buckets that had saltwater in them at other times so the TDS doesn’t read 0, but the water came out of the lines pure just a small bit of salt my tds meter is picking up that came off the bucket. He said there’s an inline tds meter that tells him the resins are still good and water being properly filtered. (All that being said, I did like mixing my own with distilled so I had more control over what was going in my tank.)

[gena]

6 hours ago, banasophia said:

I used quite a few different sources in my first year: distilled, premixed from my LFS that has good tanks, Imagitarium saltwater from Petco, and NutriSeawater before I had three tanks. Now I use a 7 stage filter from BRS. 
 

@gena, thought I’d mention once I got some high tds RODI from my good LFS and he explained it was because he uses rinsed buckets that had saltwater in them at other times so the TDS doesn’t read 0, but the water came out of the lines pure just a small bit of salt my tds meter is picking up that came off the bucket. He said there’s an inline tds meter that tells him the resins are still good and water being properly filtered. (All that being said, I did like mixing my own with distilled so I had more control over what was going in my tank.)

That's good to know.  Hopefully that's the issue at the LFS I went to!