whatisthismythaboutnotusingtapwaterlongtermfortanks?

then use the .....key and put 2 ..'s in between words....IMO that would be less confusing....trying to read what you have above gives me a headache

 

Just flip your computer around and use the back space key.

 

Not all areas have the same tap water quality, Joe Blow in the next town may not have the same chemicals in his tap that your town has. Also tap water that never had any problems.... using it for years suddenly creates havoc because the water treatment place did something different.

 

RO water is pure, it is so filtered nothing is is in it. So the ONLY stuff in the water is what YOU add with your salt mix and suppliments. My fish don't need Fluoride for example.

 

If you use tap as your top off, eventually you will have all tap water. Considering the amount of money and time to create a healthy place for your coral and fish, going on the cheap side to save 20 cents a gallon isn't worth it.

Have you tested your tap water for calcium, carbonate hardness, phosphates, tds, copper...any of that stuff?  Are you treating the tap water?

 

Yes, as Flower stated it's different from one location to the next.  We have fairly hard water in my location, so it's already high in calcium.   Pluss to expand on what Flower said,  only freshwater evaporates...so all of the elements like calcium, etc. are left behind in the tank. So what happens as you add more elements to the tank when you do your top offs then the concentrations can start to get really high.

Good point   I didn't even consider that, what a scary thought.

 

For the OP, The reason why many people choose to use RO water is to PREVENT algae blooms, not create them. + what Flower and 2Quills stated.

 

I start plenty of tanks with tapwater, but I never continue to use it.

I agree with what the others have posted. I also wanted to add, you have A LOT of macro algae in your display, which most definitely is causing your readings to be the way they are. You also don't have many harder to keep corals, such as SPS, and I think that once you start venturing into corals that need those stable and consistent water parameters that this is when tap might become an issue. You're also in a different country, and they may treat their tap differently than here. I, for one, have excellent tap water, and have started many tanks with it and used it in emergency situations. But when I do test it from time to time, I don't always get the same readings. This found be due to when they treat the pipes, etc. With all the money invested in my tanks, I'm just not willing to take the risk.

Call your water company and request a copy of their latest water analysis.  You will see a long list of things that are toxic, but present in your tap water at concentrations below the dangerous limit set by the government.  However, those things will accumulate in the tank over time, and may cause a problem later.  Think things like dry cleaning fluid, arsenic, benzene!

Poor, Grouper....he's gone but not forgoten lol.

 

+1  Many of these substances, copper and zinc especially, are at safe levels for humans but can accumilate on the surfaces of rocks and substrate so they are not diluted by water changes and simply accumulate for years.  We're not talking 11 months, more like 3 or 4 years.  Some hobbiests start noticing snails dying off, corals not thriving, etc.  As stated earlier many water districts are excellent but if you don't have a historical report in front of you then you just don't know.

 

The tank crashes are always blamed on something else but there's quite a few hobbiests that insist tap water is good but complain of a tank crash every few years because of XYZ.

 

lol, I didn't even notice it was a necropost.