TAP or RO LET'S VOTE
- Thread starter meowzer
- Start date
lkgrenegade22
Member
Let's just sum this thread up to prevent any future arguing.
While tap/well can sometimes be fine to use, you can go wrong with tap, but you can't go wrong with RO/DI.
While tap/well can sometimes be fine to use, you can go wrong with tap, but you can't go wrong with RO/DI.
V
vinnyraptor
Guest
i agree.... even though i dont have an RO unit and use tap RO water has to be safer. when i first filled my tank i had algae blooms like crazy. it took me a few weeks to get it under control but after that everything was fine. i dont have corals but do have many inverts and over the course of 1 1/2 years ive only lost one clown and he was sick when i purchased him. i dare anyone to find healthier looking/acting fish and inverts than mine.
i think its ideal to use RO but not mandatory, if i was setting up a new tank i would fill it with RO from the store to eliminate that first algae bloom but then use tap for my water changes and top offs. no way im spending 100's of dollars on an RO unit, not in this economy! lol.
i think its ideal to use RO but not mandatory, if i was setting up a new tank i would fill it with RO from the store to eliminate that first algae bloom but then use tap for my water changes and top offs. no way im spending 100's of dollars on an RO unit, not in this economy! lol.
natclanwy
Active Member
You would be much better served to start your tank with tap water then switch to RO. The problem is when you topoff you are adding more contaminents but you are not removing any, and when you do your water changes you replacing the same contaminents that you are removing so the levels of contaminents will steadily rise over time. The problem comes in when those contaminents are lethal to your livestock. Having a TDS of 400 doesn't automatically make the water lethal as Cranberry is saying with her husbands success. You need to know what is causing the TDS reading of 400, if its calcium in the water big deal you have hard water but its not going to adversly effect your livestock. If its copper you may never have a problem with ich but you might have a problem keeping inverts and coral. You can have lethal minerals making up the TDS reading or Non-lethal components or a combination of both so a TDS reading on its own is worthless for determining water quality its only telling you whether your RO system is working or not.
By the way starting with RO will not prevent the eventual algae bloom from a newly cycled tank it may lessen the bloom if your tap has alot of nitrate and phosphate but it won't prevent it.
By the way starting with RO will not prevent the eventual algae bloom from a newly cycled tank it may lessen the bloom if your tap has alot of nitrate and phosphate but it won't prevent it.
nwdyr
Active Member
I used tap water yrs ago (20yrs) but back then we had no other choices. Then again our fish never lived for years like then do now! I would never even consider using tap water...why would you
I don't have a R/O unit but I buy it at the store for 1.25 for a 5gal jug. So it cost me about 7.00 per month to do my water changes...again kind of a no brainer , considering I have well over 3,000.00 invested in my tank. + 1,000 on RO water
snakeblitz33
Well-Known Member
I vote neither!
My explanation: In my city, there is an element called Alumn that cloggs the membranes of my RO units. Every two weeks I have to replace membranes - (at the store) however at home, I do not use RO water.
My system is a series of filters, first one passes through some water softening media. The second chamber is a Sediment filter. The third and fourth chamber is a five micron carbon block filter. The fifth chamber is a 1 micron carbon block filter. The last three stages go through DeIonized media which I often replace. By the time water passes through all of that media, I get a TDS reading of around 3 to 5ppm.
Which is pretty good, considering that spending $60 on RO membranes every two weeks and got about the same result.
I don't see anything wrong with filtering water - but in some cases - like mine - the RO part of the unit is not necessary.
Just my $0.02
My explanation: In my city, there is an element called Alumn that cloggs the membranes of my RO units. Every two weeks I have to replace membranes - (at the store) however at home, I do not use RO water.
My system is a series of filters, first one passes through some water softening media. The second chamber is a Sediment filter. The third and fourth chamber is a five micron carbon block filter. The fifth chamber is a 1 micron carbon block filter. The last three stages go through DeIonized media which I often replace. By the time water passes through all of that media, I get a TDS reading of around 3 to 5ppm.
Which is pretty good, considering that spending $60 on RO membranes every two weeks and got about the same result.
I don't see anything wrong with filtering water - but in some cases - like mine - the RO part of the unit is not necessary.
Just my $0.02
petjunkie
Active Member
I support the ro crowd but still on tap here. That's four years running, nitrates all over the place from overfeeding, comes out 0 from the tap, little to no filtration other than the live rock and no algea, I can't grow the stuff to save my life so I get a little tired of hearing how bad my algea problem must be from using tap. The rest of my reef club is on RO/DI with sumps and refugiums galore and almost everyone is battling algea. In this time almost everyone is on RO, I don't see any lessening of the problem posts though. Algea is not neccessarily something that comes from tap, overfeeding, high nitrates, low flow, all the usual ones that get blamed, way too many people doing everything right and losing the battle for that to be true.
Oh yeah pics
33 gallon as it is today
33 gallon about 3 years ago, the start of the reef
My old 10 gallon nano reef
My Aquapod currently
Oh yeah pics
33 gallon as it is today
33 gallon about 3 years ago, the start of the reef
My old 10 gallon nano reef
My Aquapod currently
yearofthenick
Active Member
RO - Better safe than sorry....
Although I've been using tap water for my mantis tank haha
Although I've been using tap water for my mantis tank haha
sepulatian
Moderator
I have to say that I see just as many algae/cayno/hair algae/whatever issues with those that only use RO/DI as I do for those without. I am not voting either way, just my observations of posts on here
reefkprz
Active Member
Originally Posted by sepulatian
http:///forum/post/2891761
I have to say that I see just as many algae/cayno/hair algae/whatever issues with those that only use RO/DI as I do for those without. I am not voting either way, just my observations of posts on here
I too see a lot of posts having to do with cyano etcetera from those using RO water, but at least in those cases we can rule out the incoming water as causative, making an automatic one step closer to finding the source of the problem.
http:///forum/post/2891761
I have to say that I see just as many algae/cayno/hair algae/whatever issues with those that only use RO/DI as I do for those without. I am not voting either way, just my observations of posts on here
I too see a lot of posts having to do with cyano etcetera from those using RO water, but at least in those cases we can rule out the incoming water as causative, making an automatic one step closer to finding the source of the problem.
wydah
New Member
I'm going to side with the RO/DI users. However, I really think it depends on the quality of the tap water in your area. I've been successfully keeping both freshwater and marine fowlr for decades using just tap water and de-chlorinator drops. However I'm in the process of starting a large mixed reef in wall display, and have recently purchased a rodi system to use. I always thought my tap water must be pretty clean since I have always had good results with my tanks. I was quite surprised when I took a TDS reading on my incoming tap water and saw only 21ppm! I'm now wondering if I could have skipped the RODI cost and just stayed with my tap water usage. The only other benefit to using an RODI that I see is the insurance that you know your water is always going to be clean and filtered. For instance, just last week I saw our local water company trucks at the end of our street. They apparently were digging to repair a water main. For two days afterward our tap water had a light brown color and smelled of strong chlorine. There was no notice from the water company that work had been done on our water main, and I'm sure if I had done any water changes during this time, it would have been very bad if not fatal for my fish! In this case I think the use of an RODI filter would have been a life saver.
kjr_trig
Active Member
Originally Posted by Jerthunter
http:///forum/post/2889417
I suppose it depends on what you want. If you just want a box of water with fish in it I'd say go ahead use tap water. If on the other hand you enjoy the colors and beauty of an aquarium full of life with corals and other invertbrates, then I would say using purified water would probably be a good investment.
Personally I'm partial to reef tanks.
A box with fish huh? That's what you would call a large tank with big Angels, Triggers, Wrasses and Tangs? I have some corals in both my tanks, but I will take the beauty of a big adult Emperor Angel (for example) over any coral, any day.
http:///forum/post/2889417
I suppose it depends on what you want. If you just want a box of water with fish in it I'd say go ahead use tap water. If on the other hand you enjoy the colors and beauty of an aquarium full of life with corals and other invertbrates, then I would say using purified water would probably be a good investment.
Personally I'm partial to reef tanks.
A box with fish huh? That's what you would call a large tank with big Angels, Triggers, Wrasses and Tangs? I have some corals in both my tanks, but I will take the beauty of a big adult Emperor Angel (for example) over any coral, any day.
paintballer768
Active Member
Tap may be usable in SOME locations, depending on what the city puts in the water. Well water has minerals and nasty stuff, should never be used. There could be a huge amount of various minerals in the tap though, like my city. I use RO and I know I dont need to worry about putting phosphates or any other kind of nasty in my tank during normal top offs.
reefkprz
Active Member
often you hear "my water is great they told me so at the water commision" or something like that. "great" falls under the category of "for human consumption" not great for marine life.
you can get a lot of weird things in tap water such as
ortho-phosphates (used to prevent corrosion in pipes) which may not show up on a standard test kit but will eventually break down into simple phosphates and can feed algaes
Hydrosalable phosphates, used to bind Iron and prevent scaling, this too breaks down to simple phosphates.
chlorine/chloromines used for preventing microbial growth.
and of course trace copper, iron etc from pipes.
tap water treatments are available but often such treatments such as used for heavy metals (Iron for instance) makes it less toxic but may simply chelate the iron turning it into a great plant/algae food.
unfortunatly (this will get your goat) a lot of the cloramine treatments result in leaving ammonia behind as a result of neutralizing the chloramine. Cl2+nh3=chloramine neutralize the chlorine and you leave the NH3 behind. I prefer not to dump ammonia in my tank with waterchanges as it just adds to the bioload. there are chlorimine eliminators that work. generally poly-vinyl compounds.
just about any product that claims to eliminate chloramine in one step is hocus pocus. these products simply work by inducing formaline poisoning of the fish stimulating a slime coat response preventing the chloramine from entering the fish. but poisoning the fish with formaline. if it smells like formalin/formaldahyde it'll do more harm than good.
Don't believe me? Get a test kit and do the simple experiment. How do these companies stay in business? People buy their stuff out of ignorance. Don't be ignorant.
you can get a lot of weird things in tap water such as
ortho-phosphates (used to prevent corrosion in pipes) which may not show up on a standard test kit but will eventually break down into simple phosphates and can feed algaes
Hydrosalable phosphates, used to bind Iron and prevent scaling, this too breaks down to simple phosphates.
chlorine/chloromines used for preventing microbial growth.
and of course trace copper, iron etc from pipes.
tap water treatments are available but often such treatments such as used for heavy metals (Iron for instance) makes it less toxic but may simply chelate the iron turning it into a great plant/algae food.
unfortunatly (this will get your goat) a lot of the cloramine treatments result in leaving ammonia behind as a result of neutralizing the chloramine. Cl2+nh3=chloramine neutralize the chlorine and you leave the NH3 behind. I prefer not to dump ammonia in my tank with waterchanges as it just adds to the bioload. there are chlorimine eliminators that work. generally poly-vinyl compounds.
just about any product that claims to eliminate chloramine in one step is hocus pocus. these products simply work by inducing formaline poisoning of the fish stimulating a slime coat response preventing the chloramine from entering the fish. but poisoning the fish with formaline. if it smells like formalin/formaldahyde it'll do more harm than good.
Don't believe me? Get a test kit and do the simple experiment. How do these companies stay in business? People buy their stuff out of ignorance. Don't be ignorant.
florida joe
Well-Known Member
Just a side bar on TDS readings remembers your RO unite will take out a certain percentage. The number you get when you take your reading is a number predicated on the amount of TDS in your influent water to your RO unite. So it’s possible to have a number well over zero in the effluent water filtered through a unit
snakeblitz33
Well-Known Member
I agree with florida joe. at one time the water going in was cleaner then the water coming out of the unitE.
sjk2840
Member
Hi all, just thought I would chime in and vote- I voted RO. I live in Arizona and have well water (drilled 500' down. ) I thought for sure that my water was great. I found out that it was very high in phosphate and calcium. I could never get my PH to satilize and had a bad algae problem. Switched to RO water from my LFS about 2 months ago-my ph stabilized and now I only have occasional algae. My LR even has lots more color. I'm in the process now of having my 80 gallon built into the wall and will be getting my own RO unit.
mantisman51
Active Member
If you are in the East/Southeast part of AZ,don't forget the heavy metals.It is great mining country because of the abundance of metal.
