SPS and tap water?

[Reef-Geek]

the tap water from lower mainland is pretty soft and only has 10 ppm tds

anyone has long-term success with tap water for sps tanks?

[Ryanerickson]

I'm sure it can be done but dont see why you would want to you will have better success with ro water in my opinion if you can afford sps you can afford a ro unit.they come up in the buy and sell often also jl has one for a bit over 100 dollars.

[Animal-Chin]

It is pretty amazing how clean our water is though. My RO filter was changed in November and its now just a bit beige. You see dudes online cleaning out 6 month old filters that are covered in what looks like mud. We are lucky people here in the west.

Still, the RO unit at J&L is $100, go get one.

[Bblinks]

I'm sure it can be done but dont see why you would want to you will have better success with ro water in my opinion if you can afford sps you can afford a ro unit.they come up in the buy and sell often also jl has one for a bit over 100 dollars.

+1

[hillegom]

Although I have an RO system, I know of a few people that have sps and use tap water.
Anthony from seahorse fanatic is one.

[The Codfather]

Do you guys remember John's (aka lobsterboy)tank? He used water right out of the fawcet and his sps were always top notch. So, it can be done.

[dino]

I think its to general of a statement because we all have different parameters in our tap water and it does vary from time to time. I think consistency is the key that's why ro is preferred. my tds is 65 out of the tap

[Buzz]

10 PPM and 50PPM !! :surprise:

Our town has a 14 million dollar upgrade to the water plant completed this spring and my tap water runs anywhere from 300PPM to 450PPM.

[sphelps]

Personally I can't imagine running an RO system on a 10ppm water source. Sounds pretty absurd really and a terrible waste of water even though yes you could recover and reuse the waste water elsewhere but why go through that trouble. Around these parts we use prefilters and RO to bring are source 300+ppm water down to maybe 10-20ppm. Some go further and use DI to bring it closer to zero.

If I had a water source that good I would just use a sediment filter and a carbon block to deal with chlorine and any potential changes in sediments that can sometimes occur throughout the year but that would certainly be as far as I would take it. IMO using a better safe than sorry argument here is just a little too far on the overkill scale and tipping more into the waste of time and money side of things.

[purplepolypeater]

I used tap water for over 5 years with no ill effects and great looking corals but in this hobby stability is #1 so if an ro filter and regular testing can prevent an issue rather cheaply is it really worth the risk. You might not know if the city flushes the lines and things change. At minimum I would test the water every time you use it.

[Ryanerickson]

Personally I can't imagine running an RO system on a 10ppm water source. Sounds pretty absurd really and a terrible waste of water even though yes you could recover and reuse the waste water elsewhere but why go through that trouble. Around these parts we use prefilters and RO to bring are source 300+ppm water down to maybe 10-20ppm. Some go further and use DI to bring it closer to zero.

If I had a water source that good I would just use a sediment filter and a carbon block to deal with chlorine and any potential changes in sediments that can sometimes occur throughout the year but that would certainly be as far as I would take it. IMO using a better safe than sorry argument here is just a little too far on the overkill scale and tipping more into the waste of time and money side of things.


Guess me and every other reefer around theses parts got it wrong and we are all just crazy absurb for running ro in lower mainland. My goal when making new water is to start from zero I want the best water possible for my livestock.

[sphelps]

Guess me and every other reefer around theses parts got it wrong and we are all just crazy absurb for running ro in lower mainland. My goal when making new water is to start from zero I want the best water possible for my livestock.
IMO yes. No different than saying all us folks around here are crazy absurb for only using one RO membrane, we should be using two or more inline to achieve the same results as you folks down there.

[Potatohead]

My tap water tests at 14 TDS and I still use an RODI unit, for a measly $130 or whatever it was I want to eliminate as many potential issues as possible. The filters and DI last forever... lol.

[Animal-Chin]

I feel safer using it. What if we get heavy rain that washing gunk up from the reservoir or something like that and all of a sudden out TDS goes up?

[CoralNut]

For real people think its absurd to want the best for animals collected out of the wild to grace us with their presence. If you are worried about cost and savings maybe you belong in the freshwater hobby where everything is tank raised and wnt know the difference.

[mike31154]

TDS, total dissolved solids. While the number is of interest, more importantly it's useful to know what those solids are. In most cases since we are talking about potable water, the solids deemed potentially harmful to our health need to be below a certain threshold. All water suppliers test their output into the system & produce reports that should be available on line to the user. I guess what I'm implying here is that your TDS could be as low as 5, but if that 5 includes copper (not considered harmful to humans), there could be consequences for your salt water livestock long term if you don't take steps to filter it out. Good idea to look up the info on your water source & that should help make a decision as to what level of filtration is appropriate to your situation.

As other folks have mentioned, your water source contaminants may change over the season and/or if the utility is flushing the lines or performing other maintenance. Here in the greater Vernon area there are 2 main sources, Kalamalka Lake & Duteau Creek. The city/regional district occasionally switches my tap water source from Kal Lake to Duteau. A heads up is usually published in the local newspaper. In fact this happened just recently when they were working on extending the intake of the Kal Lake source. I was on the Duteau Creek supply & enjoyed much softer water, 46 TDS as opposed to 180 or higher from Kal Lake. A good percentage of the TDS from Kal Lake is calcium, something many of us dose into our reef tanks. Leaves ugly stains on porcelain appliances (read toilets) in our homes & causes us to use more soap to get stuff clean due to water hardness. This reminds me I should check the latest report to see what's in the Duteau TDS, but since I do use an RO/DI system, I can sort of let that slide. A worthwhile investment in my case.

[Ranchu50]

I live in Coquitlam, and I have been using tap water for the past 4 years, running it only through an old carbon filter.
Have been getting red turf algae and redness on sand.
I definitely do not overfeed.

Just bought a vertex ro/di so i've been slowly introducing ro/di water into my 65 gallon.

We'll see in a couple of months if this will solve the algae problem.

I am shocked how inefficient ro/di's are. Such a waste of water to make purified water!!

[Animal-Chin]

I bet I flush more water down my toilet in a day than my rodi "wastes" in a week. Sure you send water down the drain but just picture how much water you drain after you fill the bathtub once or wash a load of laundry.

[mike31154]

I collect the RO system waste water. There are many uses for it, including toilet flushing. Win- win. My issue/concern is the quarterly water bill more than any waste.

[DKoKoMan]

I just purchased the Vertex Puratek Deluxe RO/DI from J&K Aquatics. Price was good And the less headache the better!