How many of you is not using RODI??

[Jilly92]

Hi All,

how many of you are not using RODI?
I have kept freshwater fish for few year and only use tap water with primer and heater to match the water temp as display tank. Never had any problem.
New to saltwater fish keeping world, many seem to emphasize the need of using RODI.
I just tested my tap water. Nitrates ppm was 1.8
For those who are you not using RODI, have you ever run in uncontrollable water parameter issue like algae boom?
please share your thought!!
Happy new year to All

I have done both. I keep freshwater tanks as well. But I haven't solely done tap and no rodi. Matter of fact that seems like a good little project. Maybe I will start doing 30g frag with conditioned tap vs domain 55 gal at rodi.
You can find lots of reefers on YouTube who have used conditioned tap for a long time and have beautiful corals. So really its up to you whether you want to chance it.

 

[reeferKen]

just using tap water here for 18 years at the 8:40 mark

 

[Sarcazian]

Exactly. Here’s mine....Ha

Wow. My first tank looked like that like 12 years ago. I bought it used and I was probably using tap water in the start before switching over to RODI. It was a lost cause and even with RODI WC's, high skimming, GFO, Algae scrubber, and chaeo (trimmed a lot) it was a lost cause. My tank was pretty small with a 36g bow + 7-10g sump.

Not sure if the grape chapero (spelling?) like you have, the bubble algae, or hamedia was causing some type of loop.

 

[ReefRusty]

Only use RO water for my ATO and natural sea water for the tank. RO water reads less than 5 TDS

 

[KyRo]

I don't use rodi, I use tap water with Prime before mixing in salt.
I'm sure I have elevated n&p's. But it doesn't justify throwing the "dirty" water down the drain. If I can drink it, so can the fish. Nothing bad has happened to my aquarium.

I mean I can drink Red Bull, but it doesn't mean it's safe for the tank lol. As long as your tank is okay though, go with what works, but I definitely wouldn't use tap.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

I mean I can drink Red Bull, but it doesn't mean it's safe for the tank lol. As long as your tank is okay though, go with what works, but I definitely wouldn't use tap.

Well that's playing semantics, I'm not good with that. My kids play that game. And I hate it.

 

[BZOFIQ]

I mean I can drink Red Bull, but it doesn't mean it's safe for the tank lol. ...

It doesnt mean its safe for you either.

 

[KyRo]

Well that's playing semantics, I'm not good with that. My kids play that game. And I hate it.

I mean not necessarily. Just because you can drink it, doesn't mean you should nor does it mean your fish should.

 

[KyRo]

It doesnt mean its safe for you either.

Right, that is my point. Just because you can, doesn't mean it's safe on either account.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

 

[KyRo]

Do your kids do this also?

If you can't take a bit of disagreement on a public forum, maybe it's not for you.

 

[Sleeping Giant]

Do your kids do this also?

If you can't take a bit of disagreement on a public forum, maybe it's not for you.

Pardon me? I'm done with this conversation, it's over a month old...move on

 

[jaganshi066]

Im not i havent day 1.. but i guess i have holy grail tap water in northern virginia


Thie is my tank. The zoa garden is just the side of the tank i didnt get in the first pic.

Beautiful tank, and you’re using tap water! Love the zoa garden!!

 

[Sleeping Giant]

Do your kids do this also?

If you can't take a bit of disagreement on a public forum, maybe it's not for you.

And just for your information station in your head, I use tap for multiple reasons, first one is none of your business, secondly I live in Canada where water is clean and beautiful, unlike most other places in the world.

 

[iMi]

I was going to use distilled water first, which costs $1 a gallon. Then I thought I'd just buy saltwater from the local fish store, which they sell for $1 as well. I've gotten some good advice here on the issues with buying water from local store, so I ended up buying RO/DI unit on Amazon for $70...

It's really the best way to go...

 

[Chrisfish]

I have always used distilled water and never had any issues, I actually bought RODI water to set up my tank from a popular pet chain and had lots of problems with algae so I’m back to using distilled for water changes and top offs. Just my personal preference so please don’t blast me

 

[KyRo]

And just for your information station in your head, I use tap for multiple reasons, first one is none of your business, secondly I live in Canada where water is clean and beautiful, unlike most other places in the world.

Okay, so I guess we're not moving on.

I'm just saying that your original reasoning was really short sighted lol I didn't expect you to take it so bad by comparing me to one of your kids then "blah blah blah'ing" me. From now on, I'll agree with all of your posts to avoid fragility.

 

[jaganshi066]

i think we can all just agree that whether or not RODI is necessary is dependent on where you are. There is no need to shame someone for not using RODI if their tap is clean enough - like Sleeping Giants. There is also no need to tell every new hobbyist that a RODI is absolutely necessary if money is an issue. In that case it's better to have the hobbyist do more research to see how clean his/her tap is. For ex if you live somewhere with water similar to Sleeping Giants's then you probably will have a good chance to be successful, but if you live in like.. LA, the copper along will kill anything you put in the tank.

For all new hobbyist i think the best we can do is just educating them on the full information and have them make their own decisions, instead of blindly shoving 1-size-fits-all solutions to them, esp if money/resource is a limiting factor.

Very nice post, people are too narrow minded in this hobby.

 

[carpetlover]

Hi All,

how many of you are not using RODI?
I have kept freshwater fish for few year and only use tap water with primer and heater to match the water temp as display tank. Never had any problem.
New to saltwater fish keeping world, many seem to emphasize the need of using RODI.
I just tested my tap water. Nitrates ppm was 1.8
For those who are you not using RODI, have you ever run in uncontrollable water parameter issue like algae boom?
please share your thought!!
Happy new year to All

Tada, I use bottled water. 30 cents a pop. Pure pure pure!

 

[jaganshi066]

yeah this topic comes up every once a while when reefers try to address this exact waste water problem - general idea is either to run all or part of the waste water line back into the membrane in line, or a secondary membrane line, with a T fitting.

a quick google searched resulted in this thread from R2R from 2 years ago. i'm sure there are others if you search:

RODI UNIT WASTE WATER

Would it be acceptable to split off the waste water line and have some go to waste and some be reran back through the rodi unit?

www.reef2reef.com

My girlfriend gets so mad at how much water my rodi unit wastes but she started collecting the water and using it for gardening haha