What type of water for salt water?

[junglejim]

Hi,

Maybe a dumb question but what sort of water are you supposed to mix with the salt? Is tap water ok? Or rainwater?

[fantapants22]

Hi,

Maybe a dumb question but what sort of water are you supposed to mix with the salt? Is tap water ok? Or rainwater?

hello! with marine you want no chemicals if you can help it. So you need to use R/O water (reverse osmosis) which is typical spring water, I get mine in the big 10litre pure dew contains from supermarket for 6bucks, tap water has chemicals like liquefied chlorine, fluorosilicic acid, aluminum sulphate etc which is fine for us but bad for fish.

even if you use the water conditioner formula it doesnt get rid of the chemicals it barely covers them up.

Depending how big your tank is you might want to consider purchasing an Ro/Di water filter which turns tap to R/O

Hope that helps!

[Morcs]

tapwater will make a marine tank the bane of your existance. been there done that and gave up first time around.

With nanos you can get away with buying Puredew water from countdown - 10L bottles cost $6-7 otherwise as mentioned youll need a RODI unit or means of collecting real salt water

[kinnadian]

Agreed with both posters, don't get tap water or you will later regret it.

I have a nano and calculated if we get an RODI unit we can halve RO costs in the first year alone (as compared to Puredew water, which is the only other option), and have it even cheaper in the following years (even considering RO or DI replacement). We have this one and I'd recommend it: http://www.ebay.com.au/itm/180544571860?ssPageName=STRK:MEWNX:IT&_trksid=p3984.m1439.l2649. Just replace the prefilters with 1 micron ones.

The other option is of course collecting your own natural sea water at high tide in a clean place.

[junglejim]

Thanks guys,

All understood about tap water. What about rain water?

Thanks

[Ira]

Thanks guys,

All understood about tap water. What about rain water?

Thanks

Better, but still not ideal. IIRC I measured once when I had my marine tank and my rainwater was less pure than wellington tap water.

[junglejim]

Yikes. Is there a tes kit that I can use to test for chamicals? I am a little worried because I used a sump tank that was previously used for god only knows what.

Thanks

[Ira]

Yikes. Is there a tes kit that I can use to test for chamicals? I am a little worried because I used a sump tank that was previously used for god only knows what.

Thanks

There are tests for all chemicals. But there's no test kit that tests for "chemicals" If you're using a recycled tank I'd be concerned it had been exposed to copper based meds or snail rid. The copper gets absorbed by the silicone and glass, then leaches back into the water. It can poison invertebrates and corals at levels below(I believe) what can be detected with a copper test kit.

[No1Daemon]

You may be thinking of a TDS meter which stands for total dissolved solids. Its a measure of how pure the water is.

They are only a few bucks on trade me etc.

[junglejim]

Thanks guys. Do TDS kits working bearing in mind there is lots of salt dissolved in the water?

Would an active carbon filter, filter out chemicals?

[Adrienne]

I believe you use the TDS on water before you mix the salt in.

Activated carbon would filter out some chemicals, its pretty efficient at cleaning up a lot of stuff. Not sure about using it for marines though.

[kinnadian]

Let me put it this way.

If you are going to spend $1000+ on fish and coral, do you want to gamble on the life of those animals by saving a few bucks trying to use tap water, rain water, etc? Do you want to go through the 1+ year cycling stage and growing stage of all your corals if you crash the tank due to poor water quality?

I'm not trying to have a go here, but marine keeping isn't a cheap hobby and if you can't afford decent water, lighting and flow then I question if the hobby is for you.

There is no "quick fix" for non RODI water, if there was more people would be doing it. Carbon dosing CAN help but it is by no means a guarantee, and unless you spend hundreds of $$ on testing equipment for harmful chemicals it isn't worth the risk; and at that point, you may have well just bought the RODI!

If money is an issue, use clean natural salt water from the sea.

Otherwise I very very thoroughly implore you to buy an RODI unit.

[91 ZERO]

The amount you would spend on test kits for testing for all those chemicals in tap/rain water would just be better spent on buying an RO system. Once confirmed those chemicals are in there (which they will be), you will need to buy an RO system regardless.

Marine tank upkeep and maintenance can be expensive, it's just not worth the risk. Use tap water as a last resort/interim measure only.

I try and use Natural Sea Water where possible, but in winter the sea tends to be a bit stirred up with gunk so I have to use RO/Salt mix at the moment.

[Adrienne]

where are you located junglejim?

I'm in Auckland and my TDS is .86 before RO. Thats fairly high! I know out east Auckland it can get to over 1.

[kinnadian]

What do you mean by 0.86? TDS is measured in ppm, 0-100 ppm is considered quite good but a very poor tap water is up to about 300+ ppm.

If you mean %, 0.86% is 8600ppm, which I doubt could be possible from a public water source or I extremely doubt it would pass drinking water quality standards.

[Godly3vil]

I take it Adrienne means 86ppm. Not hard to figure out.

[Adrienne]

Thanks Godly

[si_sphinx]

Invercargill water was 136ppm when I last tested it. It would come out of my RO filter 0ppm and DI for back up.

Nelson water is between 40-60ppm. huge difference. My filters will last a lot longer now.

Remember you also need RO water for evaporation top up too. Not just for making salt water.

I have only ever used Tap water once and it was a last resort to running out of pure dew top up water.

I doesn't effect your fish as much as adds phosphates and causes algae problems. It would only effect your fish and corals if your water was really bad and full of chemicals/metals etc.

Yes rain water is still bad. RO or NO :thup:

[kinnadian]

I take it Adrienne means 86ppm. Not hard to figure out.

Well it is, because 86ppm isn't really that high at all, so I'm trying to follow her context to figure out what units she is using.