my boiled tap water has no chlorine so…??

[Randy Holmes-Farley]

I don't understand why I would have to do water changes since I have such great filtration, a monster protein skimmer, reef matt, activated charcoal. The only thing I wanna make sure is I'm replenishing all the elements that come in my blue bucket. So what if I never did water changes, and instead, I use my roadie saltwater mix in the ATO?And just monitor specific gravity? IE replace evaporated water with salt mixed roadie water through the ATO. My own blue bucket ATO i.e. I take my ATO external unit and mix it with salt . As water evaporates and it takes up and replaces via ATO with my salt mix . And I just monitor the specific gravity and add or subtract rodi water as needed. as it turns out IFS owner told me he only does about a 5% weekly water change and he has the most beautiful coral tank I've ever ever seen That's what I did today . I water replaced my 51 gallon system with about 3 1/2 gallons of salt mix. Tank looked much nicer afterward.

Tanks do not “need” water changes, but they can benefit from them.

Water Changes in Reef Aquaria by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

From it:


Conclusion

---

Water changes are a good way to help control certain processes that serve to drive reef aquarium water away from its starting purity. Some things build up in certain situations (organics, certain metals, sodium, chloride, nitrate, phosphate, sulfate, etc.), and some things become depleted (calcium, magnesium, alkalinity, strontium, silica, etc.). Water changes can serve to help correct these imbalances, and in some cases may be the best way to deal with them. Water changes of 15-30% per month (whether carried out once a month, daily or continuously) have been shown in the graphs above to be useful in moderating the drift of these different seawater components from starting levels. For most reef aquaria, I recommend such changes as good aquarium husbandry. In general, the more the better, if carried out appropriately, and if the new salt water is of appropriate quality.

Calcium and alkalinity, being rapidly depleted in most reef aquaria, are not well controlled, or even significantly impacted by such small water changes. In order to maintain them with no other supplements, changes on the order of 30-50% PER DAY would be required. Nevertheless, that option may still be a good choice for very small aquaria, especially if the changes are slow and automatic.

 

[beamers]

For sure check your TDS, there are so many trace elements and minerals that a britta will leave behind that can cause issues in your system. Heavy metals like Lead and Mercury will wipe out livestock very quickly.

 

[Ballyhoo]

Tanks do not “need” water changes, but they can benefit from them.

Water Changes in Reef Aquaria by Randy Holmes-Farley - Reefkeeping.com

From it:


Conclusion

---

Water changes are a good way to help control certain processes that serve to drive reef aquarium water away from its starting purity. Some things build up in certain situations (organics, certain metals, sodium, chloride, nitrate, phosphate, sulfate, etc.), and some things become depleted (calcium, magnesium, alkalinity, strontium, silica, etc.). Water changes can serve to help correct these imbalances, and in some cases may be the best way to deal with them. Water changes of 15-30% per month (whether carried out once a month, daily or continuously) have been shown in the graphs above to be useful in moderating the drift of these different seawater components from starting levels. For most reef aquaria, I recommend such changes as good aquarium husbandry. In general, the more the better, if carried out appropriately, and if the new salt water is of appropriate quality.

Calcium and alkalinity, being rapidly depleted in most reef aquaria, are not well controlled, or even significantly impacted by such small water changes. In order to maintain them with no other supplements, changes on the order of 30-50% PER DAY would be required. Nevertheless, that option may still be a good choice for very small aquaria, especially if the changes are slow and automatic.

Nice to have brilliant people explaining things here.
but there's a big difference bw 15%. & 30%

 

[NanoNana]

Nice to have brilliant people explaining things here.
but there's a big difference bw 15%. & 30%

And that’s where experience and water testing come in to play. How much water is in part going to depend on your nutrient export. How much is the coral using etc. A person with a FOWLR tank or an all softie tank will need less that someone with all sps for one example.

 

[ISpeakForTheSeas]

Nice to have brilliant people explaining things here.
but there's a big difference bw 15%. & 30%

There is - to simplify here as much as possible:

Water changes (new saltwater replacing old saltwater) serve two main purposes:

1 - removal of unwanted things in the old water
2 - addition of some depleted elements in the old water

Because (stony) corals consume calcium and alkalinity to grow, those are depleted more quickly than reasonable water changes can replace (at least for large tanks) - as a result, dosing these is recommended regardless of if water changes are being done or not.

Other elements that are depleted are generally not used so rapidly, and will require less new saltwater to renew - these are viable to replenish via water changes.

Doing a 50% water change daily on a 1 gallon tank is reasonable; doing a 50% water change on a 300 gallon tank is less reasonable in most cases.



So, to replace trace elements (not major parameters/elements that are being used rapidly like calcium), water changes (with new saltwater) or dosing are the options.

To replenish major elements without doing huge water changes, you need to dose.


Water changes may not be necessary if:

-You're dosing to replace used elements in the water

-Your filtration is sufficient to remove unwanted elements, chemicals, etc. in the water

 

[Dburr1014]

no, the Brita did not remove the chlorine unless boiled. I tested that. I thought it was chlorine was the main reason why we can't use tapwater. What would be the second and third chemicals we would want to test for in our tapwater to see if boiling would be OK? The whole ro-di water " is preferred". " is reliable," is not really scientific. and it's OK if you wanna say hey dude do whatever you want. Don't listen to us, but I'm trying to approach this scientifically here without sentiment. Because yeah sure ro di water is preferred but there's gotta be a reason, specific chemicals. Is it fluoride ? what else? because you know what, maybe in some circumstances for some municipalities boiled water would be OK. Maybe not. But there's gotta be a way to measure, rather than being sentimental and loyal to one culty method.

Late to the party but, go to your municipality and ask for a water report. In the report it will tell you all the things that is in your water. There's going to be a list of stuff in there that you don't want in your Marine tank, this is why we use r o d i.

Now if you are on a well, you could always send water out and have that tested to see what is in that water. My house is fed by a well. I know it has approximately 45 TDS. I still use r o d i because I want nothing but Quality Water.

 

[Glowurm]

I have a Britta filter and i poured a bunch into a kettle and boiled it. Then I tested it for chlorine and there's zero chlorine in it. The non boiled Britta water does test positive chlorine . So what's the deal? Why can't we use boiled Britta tap-water for our reef tanks?

Sounds like an incredible expensive way to obtain water, boiling a kettle isnt energy efficient and whey your having to do this potentially dozens of times for one water change?

Think ill pass and use RODI!

 

[Glowurm]

my tank is only a 52 system! but distilled gotta be ok i hope. what toxic elements could make it through the distillation process?

Not sure if you're being serious with this, you understand the difference between distilled and boiled right? Are you saying you've got a distillation process set up and linked to your tap?

And have you factored in the cost of boiling all that water? I get through 50 litres a week so that is a lot of kettle boiling. My RO unit simply needs water pressure to provide me with superior quality at a fraction of the cost.

I mean you do you if you want, blow money on britta filters and enough energy to power your TV for the month ill use my £120 RO unit.

 

[BiggestE22]

I have a Britta filter and i poured a bunch into a kettle and boiled it. Then I tested it for chlorine and there's zero chlorine in it. The non boiled Britta water does test positive chlorine . So what's the deal? Why can't we use boiled Britta tap-water for our reef tanks?

Buy ar least a 4 stage rodi unit.

 

[BiggestE22]

no, the Brita did not remove the chlorine unless boiled. I tested that. I thought it was chlorine was the main reason why we can't use tapwater. What would be the second and third chemicals we would want to test for in our tapwater to see if boiling would be OK? The whole ro-di water " is preferred". " is reliable," is not really scientific. and it's OK if you wanna say hey dude do whatever you want. Don't listen to us, but I'm trying to approach this scientifically here without sentiment. Because yeah sure ro di water is preferred but there's gotta be a reason, specific chemicals. Is it fluoride ? what else? because you know what, maybe in some circumstances for some municipalities boiled water would be OK. Maybe not. But there's gotta be a way to measure, rather than being sentimental and loyal to one culty method.

No. The calcium or chloramines and just the fact that adding salt mix to already Treated water can result in elevated numbers are also just a few other reasons

 

[sharkbait-uhaha]

Just save yourself the time, money, and effort and get yourself a RODI system. No need to reinvent the wheel. "if it's not broke why fix it" type of thing here .

 

[AquaLogic]

I have a Britta filter and i poured a bunch into a kettle and boiled it. Then I tested it for chlorine and there's zero chlorine in it. The non boiled Britta water does test positive chlorine . So what's the deal? Why can't we use boiled Britta tap-water for our reef tanks?

Boiling doesn't remove and TDS. Chlorine is immediately harmful, but TDS is something that can crash or kill your tank down the road. Your tap water could be filled with things you don't want in a reef. Things that could eventually cause various algae build ups or other contamination.

It's just not worth the risk. You'll spend so much more time fixing TDS related problems later it will be far more work than just doing R/O.