Thankyou fkshiu. I was going to try to respond to some of the comments but you said it better than I could have.
As for the cost, JL has one available for 230.00 and I am sure you can pick up a second hand or off of ebay for even less.
Unless you run a nano (and even then!), you cannot argue that Saltwater Aquariums are inexpensive. When you add up the cost to replace all of the livestock, coral, sand, and live rock in your tank from a bad water change, 230.00 is a sweet investment.
I know there are some great tanks that use tap water. I just think that I would be constanty worried every time I did a water change, that I would find my inhabitants belly up in the morning.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fkshiu
All this discussion over what colour tap water should or should not be is the exact reason why you should be using RO/DI even if your tapwater is usually OK - consistency.
RO/DI will always be the same beautiful blue water and you know exactly what is in it. All it takes to destroy your entire reef system is a sanitation crew outside mucking around with the pipes and stirring up a bunch of crap just when you're changing your water. Visually you may not even notice, but your system sure will.
This is coming from someone who lives in the GVRD where we routinely get ~10 TDS coming straight from the tap. I probably could get away with using just tap, but the 2 weeks of brown water we got last winter completely justified the RO/DI investment. My pre-filters were nasty after that incident - filled with stuff that could have otherwise gone into my tank.
And you don't need to "waste" any water with RO - collect it and use it to wash your clothes or water your garden.
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