Time for noob questions

91sbcamaro

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Apr 28, 2010
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Omaha, NE
The SW forum guys seem to be on top of answer any questions that people ask, so heres a few more:

My setup is a 75gal w/ 20gal sump & UV steralizer. I want to do live rock, live sand and fish:

1. Can I use tap water to fill it up? Buying distilled would be expensive and require quite a bit of water, and a RO system seems like a pain and expensive.

2. I got 50lbs of rock, it was alive a few weeks ago when the tank was taken down. I understand that its going to be dead now but I want to throw half of this old rock and half new live rock in there to cycle. Will this work?

Also if you have any online sources for live sand/rock post up a link.

Thanks,
Brandon
 

Kevin8888

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Sep 14, 2009
1,306
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Canada
OK, I wouldnt recomend using tap, but if you have to you can, but again i would avoid if at all possible, contaminates from your water can cause problems.

Your "dead" live rock would work to start/ complete the cycle, as anything that was alive will breakdown into ammonia and other things that will create food for your biofilter it wont be as fast but it would work, though adding new live will help speed up the cycle.
 

Heathd

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Mar 9, 2010
1,299
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66
Dallas, Texas
I use tap but I am a fish only setup and I dont have anything too awful in the water. I would just do a baseline test of your tap water to see what is in it, or go to the citys page and look at the water report, and that would give you a really good idea of what you have in your water. Also, keep an eye out on craigslist. Some people are letting nice R/O systems go for 100 bucks.
 

perfect_prefect

Feeder Fish
MFK Member
Jul 17, 2008
2,163
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iowa
you will want to get a protein skimmer also. i recommend getting one thats rated for atleast 2x your water volume.
 

TheCanuck

Piranha
MFK Member
Nov 9, 2009
3,056
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DALLAS TEXAS
I can't see the picture but ill let you konw when i get home. School doesn't allow pics...

I use tapwater, because mine is perfect. Very minimal nitrates but they get eaten up right once i dump them into the tank from my aglea and micro algea in my sump. There are ways that you can still use your tap water even if its ****.

Like kevin said i think the dead live rock is great to start a cycle in the tank and to really get it going. Just toss all of it in and get a skimmer on that thing! I can direct you to some good effiant skimmer for the price if you would like. Having a skimmer could reduce your WCs by more than 50%, not to mention make a fuge in your sump which would just require some cheato and a 20$ light.

It sounds like your off to a great start!
 

Heathd

Fire Eel
MFK Member
Mar 9, 2010
1,299
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66
Dallas, Texas
You want to look for:
Phosphates (algea bloom)
Nitrates (algea bloom and impacts fish health)
Silcants or Silcates
Copper, Iron, and other heavy metals (bad for fish, even worse for inverts and reef)

Then there are the products used to disenfect the water. Chlorine and Chlorimine are normally nutralized by water conditioners. There are byproducts of using these that are not regulated by any standard and they can be really high... i.e. haloacetics, trihalomethanes, chloroform, bromoform, bromodichloromethane, dibromodichloromethane, and sulfur. A lot of these have no known adverse effects on humans, but are bad for fish, especially salt water since they are much more sensitive to water parameters, and I have no baseline for these either.

There are also reagents from herbicides and pesticides from runoff into your local water source, which are normally very very low, but could have a huge impact on your aquarium.
 

91sbcamaro

Jack Dempsey
MFK Member
Apr 28, 2010
17
0
31
Omaha, NE
Looking more into the results here is the heavy metals count:

Lead: 15ppb
Copper: 1.3ppm
Arsenic: 5ppb
Barium: .09ppm
Chromium: 7.11ppb
Flouride: 1.04ppm
Nitrate-Nitrite - 1.8ppm
Selenium 7.8ppb

As long as I am ready this data sheet correctly
 
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