RO water vs tap

scarysdad

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I will be setting up my first Marine tank in the next few months and can't decide whether to splurge on an RO unit or just go with treated tap water. My tap water is hard and has a ph of 7.6; so my initial plans were to add Seachem Prime as I do with my FW changes, obviously salt, plus a marine buffer. I use Algone and Purigen in my FW tanks and find these unparalleled in there Nitrate control; I was also planning on running plenty of Phosban in my cannister filter. So surely I have addressed all the main problems with tap water. My neighbour ran a SW set up for a couple of years using just tapwater and Prime occasionally he would buy some RO water if he was at the lfs but wouldn't make any special trip for it and his fish did fine also he had very little problems with algae and he hasen't heard of phosphates and never tested for NO3 lol hadn't a clue what i was talking about when I asked him.....

Going to take a lot of persuasion to get me down the RO route as space is also at a premium; I will be attempting a Reef system in the next few years all going well then I would get the RO unit as I know Corals are very sensitive to water conditions.....
 

princess

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Apr 13, 2007
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just because it can be done doesn't mean it should.

lol saying that i don't use RO water and i'm doing ok for 3 month now :D.

but in my heart i know i should be using RO water....the only thing with tap water is that its from an unpredictable source and i know that one day/1 water change i could kill everything.

aslong as you know the risks involved in using tap ;)

also the more chemicals you use to mask the problems is IMO just making it worse.
 

scarysdad

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Even with RO you still end up using chemicals though; the RO filtration process naturally softens the water so I would still need to add a mineral supplement and a buffer as well as my salt.....

lol pity I couldn't just nip down to the sea get a few buckets of water the North Sea is literally 10 mins walk away.....
 

scarysdad

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forgot to add I also plan on using a UV steriliser...
 

dr_sudz

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Actually you don't even need the buffers if you are using aragonite as the substrate. The crushed coral will balance out the ph of your tank for you. You can get away with just using prime and a salt mix with tap water. Generally speaking if I am going to switch over to RO water I am doing it because the tap water is high in phosphates, resulting in red slime out break. If there is some major concern over water quality from the tap, like its not good enough to drink, then I would get the RO water.
 

Reefscape

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Apr 2, 2007
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scarysdad;1681593; said:
Even with RO you still end up using chemicals though; the RO filtration process naturally softens the water so I would still need to add a mineral supplement and a buffer as well as my salt.....

lol pity I couldn't just nip down to the sea get a few buckets of water the North Sea is literally 10 mins walk away.....
scarysdad;1681648; said:
forgot to add I also plan on using a UV steriliser...
dr_sudz;1681683; said:
Actually you don't even need the buffers if you are using aragonite as the substrate. The crushed coral will balance out the ph of your tank for you. You can get away with just using prime and a salt mix with tap water. Generally speaking if I am going to switch over to RO water I am doing it because the tap water is high in phosphates, resulting in red slime out break. If there is some major concern over water quality from the tap, like its not good enough to drink, then I would get the RO water.

I agree, nothing will need to be added to the RO water, in fact, not even prime....everything that is needed in the tank will get gotten from the trace elements in the salt used.

With regards to using tap water?? A local water test results from your supplier will show you how good or bad it is....Quite rare for people to be able to use tap water, i certainly cannot...
 

sweeTang21

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Mar 10, 2007
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i wouldn't even bother with tap. I don't see the reason to mess with the could be side effects of using it. My tank has been algae free since cycle. I purchased an RO unit for pretty cheap. To be able to produce 200GPD with a very low waste water rate due to the engineering of the system is IMO a good way to keep fresh and salt fish.

At worst you will need to add a calcium and alk mix because of high coral stocking. If you dont intend on keeping corals then no need to worry about the levels. Salts can be purchased for each specific task that your keeping. Seachem makes reef salt and FOWLR salt, so you get the best of both worlds from a different salt, each specified to exceed at its on specialty. Cant go wrong IMO.

There has been much debate about the UV usage on reef tanks. I use a lot of micro live foods such as DT phyto plankton so if I were to use UV, i would be flushing money down the drain. If its a FOWLR system you will want to monitor your water to prevent any rapid depletion of BB so your tank does not have a spike in ammonia because you killed too much of it off. I still side without using it on DT's and leave it run on a QT.
 

zepprocker45

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Apr 5, 2008
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RO water makes a big difference in my opinion. Its always a good safe bet to use RO water and not have to risk polluting your tank.
 
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