Tap water in Edmonton?

[SCUBA_STEVE]

Hey everyone. New to the saltwater game and i'm just getting the tank set up. Is there a huge issue with using the tap water and a salt mixture to get your tank up and running? If this is no good what should i look at doing?

[marblesab]

I'm running just tap water in my tank and (so far) have had zero issues. One of the local LFS said that's all she runs home too.

[blacknife]

Chloramines for one. Be sure to treat the water with prime or amquell.

I think it depends on a few things. Using ro/di water just eliminates a few more variables of what is going into your tank. For starting out it "may" be ok. If you start having algae issues that refuse to go away you will start to wonder what really is in that 10-100+ ppm disolved solids in the water.

[stellarfly]

Hey fellow reefers,

I recently called EPCOR and got a chance to talk to one of the lab technicians who actually runs the water testing for Edmonton and he said that Edmonton tap water is treated with Chlorine and Chloramines! Both are found in our water. Better to use a Chloramine specific RO/DI unit to get pure RO water! No junk = less problems to solve. IMHO

Cheers!

[JmeJReefer]

E town water is phosphate heavy! Chlorine packed! Go to save on food and fill a jug r two for $1.50 r $.79 if u use self checkout!!! Wink wink!

[Bill]

I used tap water treated with prime just to start up, then switch to RO/DI for water changes. Get a RO unit, it's cheaper in the long run than store bought.

[toytech]

the tap water here is bad i just checked the tds and its over 135 ppm back in bc the tds was 24 ppm . There could be 135ppm of calcium or it could all be phosphates .I use rodi its cheap insurance for my tank , if i can stop $500 worth of corals dieing due to phosphates buy buying a $150 rodi unit ill spend the $150 everytime.