Water top off

[imnew2saltwater]

So I got to thinking why am I going and buying RO water when I could use my tap water (which i use for fresh tank) and add prime to the water to top up my salt tank. Now I know a lot of people will probably disagree but is anyone doing the same? How much prime would I use in 20 L of water?

[WarDog]

Welcome! Do your livestock a huge favour and get a RODI system. Having pure clean water is the #1 critical step in having a thriving successful reef setup. Finding an affordable one should be no problem.

[asylumdown]

+1. I'm not sure what the water in your area is like, but there's a lot more in Calgary's tap water than just chlorine. A LOT more. There are definitely people with beautiful tap water salt water tanks, but it will always be an unknown variable and if you do have problems you'll never be able to say for sure whether or not it's the tap water, or some other problem

[HaZRaTTy]

I have never used any type of RO water in my reef and have had alot of success, though I do plan on getting an RO system for my next upgrade I don't have any problems.

You technically don't even have to treat your water with prime that's another story. People will give you advice to go do this, or that.

The only thing I find is that I sometimes get excess nutrients causing small amounts of red slime outbreaks but that only happens in the spring run off and the odd time have it has rained a lot.

[mrhasan]

Welcome! Do your livestock a huge favour and get a RODI system. Having pure clean water is the #1 critical step in having a thriving successful reef setup. Finding an affordable one should be no problem.

#1 critical step in having a thriving successful reef setup is the salt; not RODI water :) RODI is just an important "insurance" for reef setup. There's a big difference between "mandatory" and "highly recommended" things in this hobby. RODI is not a mandatory thing but its a nice step to ensure that you are not putting anything like copper above the acceptable amount for reef; many will agree while other will disagree (that's just part of this hobby).

[gregzz4]

You wouldn't need to use Prime if you ran a powerhead in the tapwater container overnight with some surface agitation. This will off-gas (correct term?) the chlorine

Prime removes chlorine and chloramines, but converts ammonia (NH3) into ammonium (NH4), so it can mess with some ammonia test kits. You'd get a false positive and wouldn't know what's going on

I'll go with the others though
I use RO, even with our low TDS tapwater
You never know exactly what the TDS is made up of, unless you contact your water company for test results

My water hovers around 6-8 TDS, sometimes up to 12
This is very low, but my water report shows theres;
Aluminum, cadmium, copper, arsenic, etc etc
And I drink this stuff :surprise: