Is DIY tap water filter sufficient because i dont have R/O

ihavecrabs

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I want to understand peoples thinking on why to strip the water bare and add things back in our own ratios...rather than letting the reef tank system balance to what it needs ??
Its a good discussion, and I enjoy knowledge.

My answer to this question is that I strip the water so that I do not have a build up of contaminants when I add my top off water to my tank. Even the most insignificant amount of a contaminant would build very quickly.

If you do water changes often, only plan on growing easy corals like xenia, GSP, kenya trees, or similar, you might be fine. If you want to get into any more difficult corals, I highly recommend an RODI unit.
 
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That's like saying I don't wear seatbelts because I might get hit by a meteor at the beach.

In 45 years of aquarium keeping I have never had a bad supplement crash my tank, but had plenty of problems that went away after I purchased an RO/DI unit

Control what you can. This makes it both less likely you will have a problem, and more likely you can figure it out when you do...
Gotcha...lol
 
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That's like saying I don't wear seatbelts because I might get hit by a meteorite at the beach.

In 45 years of aquarium keeping I have never had a bad supplement crash my tank, but had plenty of problems that went away after I purchased an RO/DI unit

Control what you can. This makes it both less likely you will have a problem, and more likely you can figure it out when you do...
But i do worry about messing with the parameters that nature set for the water to begin with, considering it supports pretty much all life as it is before we add/strip anything...lol
Wrong parameters can create massive problems in many areas.
But i guess it is a very old school way of thinking for now...huh ?
 

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But i do worry about messing with the parameters that nature set for the water to begin with, considering it supports pretty much all life as it is before we add/strip anything...lol
Wrong parameters can create massive problems in many areas.
But i guess it is a very old school way of thinking for now...huh ?

Old school perspective is still good in a lot of ways. Go check out the hair algae threads for a look at the downside of overly sterile tanks. I also get a chuckle from the "eek, I have a bristleworm in my tank" posts :D

With regards to RO/DI units, you answered your own question above when you said

"Wrong parameters can create massive problems in many areas"

The quickest and most consistent way to add water with the proper parameters every time is with a quality salt mix and RO/DI water...
 
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hart24601

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I don't get the all natural thing, there really isn't anything less natural than having a coral reef in your house.

Back to the water, as others have said some parts of the country can be fine, until they are not. Flushing lines or any other changes mean a dead tank.

Here in Iowa I would like to see a reef that runs on tap water. With all our farm runoff at parts of the year we get several ppm phosphate and over the legal limit of 10ppm nitrate. Adding a few gallons of that a day as topoff water is bad news.
 

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Paul, I've used Tap in NYC almost exclusively for more than a decade. At 38-42 TDS consistently I've had prominent owner of an LFS in NJ tell me that at that low a TDS he wouldnt bother with RODI for some setups. That number for him in NJ is somewhere between 200-300. Yes, it was a softies tank but my last setup looked far better than my friend's setups who said it couldnt be done.

Would I advise it for LPS or SPS dominated tanks - NO!

Depending on which water tunnel the water came from in NYC it could be really good. The original water tunnels to New York City are well over 100 years old and 900' below the city. They started 22 miles from the city and up until they built the Chunnel, they were the longest tunnels in the world. They are lined with cobblestones and after all those years, any impurities would have already been washed out.

But it is what the water company adds before it gets to your house, that is the problem.
 
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I don't get the all natural thing, there really isn't anything less natural than having a coral reef in your house.

Back to the water, as others have said some parts of the country can be fine, until they are not. Flushing lines or any other changes mean a dead tank.

Here in Iowa I would like to see a reef that runs on tap water. With all our farm runoff at parts of the year we get several ppm phosphate and over the legal limit of 10ppm nitrate. Adding a few gallons of that a day as topoff water is bad news.
I talk about the "natural" thing because even the top scientists on earth do not have a complete knowledge of how things in the ocean work...and heal themselves...and overcome tragic events.
But yet some believe we can strip water and our tank environments down to a "clean slate" and build it back up ouselves.
Some have tremendous success with it, some do not...
But i cannot help but believe that we cause a lot of our own issues in our home tanks by controlling too much.
There are many paths to the same place...
For example...
Protein skimmer to lower levels in your tank, or refugium (natures way) to lower levels in your tank.
I wonder what is necessary to control and what problems we cause ourselves by controlling things we do not need to control.
 
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I don't get the all natural thing, there really isn't anything less natural than having a coral reef in your house.

Back to the water, as others have said some parts of the country can be fine, until they are not. Flushing lines or any other changes mean a dead tank.

Here in Iowa I would like to see a reef that runs on tap water. With all our farm runoff at parts of the year we get several ppm phosphate and over the legal limit of 10ppm nitrate. Adding a few gallons of that a day as topoff water is bad news.
Or...can it be as simple as adding a few oceanic plants to your display tank to lower levels ??
 

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The problem is, we don’t know what’s in our water. We can only test for total dissolved solids (TDS) to see how much of something is in our water. An established aquarium will have maybe 10-20% water change each time. We feed our tanks, our fish poop and there’s plenty of stuff in there. We add additives such as aminos, mineral replenishment, etc. I can’t agree that we make our tanks too clean. And all the dirties from tap water don’t belong in our tanks for many reasons.
 

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Or...can it be as simple as adding a few oceanic plants to your display tank to lower levels ??

I say try it and let us know! You have been given plenty of reasons why to use RO/DI, at this point it's just arguing against what ppl have to say. When you show us 2ft wide acro colonies grown from frags in a system using tap water think how good that will feel! Especially when you accomplish this feat with high TDS water in agricultural area.

Since the above feat has been accomplished with RO/DI, we now need evidence that it can be accomplished with tap water, from any location in the country. It's not like that hasn't been tried for 30 years, there is a reason the hobby uses RO/DI. Plenty of people try to get by without using it.
 
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I say try it and let us know! You have been given plenty of reasons why to use RO/DI, at this point it's just arguing against what ppl have to say. When you show us 2ft wide acro colonies grown from frags in a system using tap water think how good that will feel! Especially when you accomplish this feat with high TDS water in agricultural area.

Since the above feat has been accomplished with RO/DI, we now need evidence that it can be accomplished with tap water, from any location in the country. It's not like that hasn't been tried for 30 years, there is a reason the hobby uses RO/DI. Plenty of people try to get by without using it.
Sounds like a fun experiment...
Thank you.
I may set up a smaller tank for just that and see what we can see.
 

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Sounds like a fun experiment...
Thank you.
I may set up a smaller tank for just that and see what we can see.

No problem! I can't wait to see the results, I sincerely hope it works well.


FWIW our tap water here is so poor most of the hardcore FW keeps and myself now use RO water for our fresh tanks too. Some of them lost 10k plus in fish after waterchanges with tap.
 
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No problem! I can't wait to see the results, I sincerely hope it works well.


FWIW our tap water here is so poor most of the hardcore FW keeps and myself now use RO water for our fresh tanks too. Some of them lost 10k plus in fish after waterchanges with tap.
Ouch...
I guess losing thousands in fish would make me change things...lol.
But a lot of what allows us to keep corals now that we couldn't 30 years ago is advances in lighting.
Will most definitely be fun to try with modern LEDs and my highly filtered tap water.
Worst comes to worst, it doesnt work...
But in proven areas of terrible water, i can see RO having that value you talk about.
 
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A ro/di removes a lot more bad stuff than you add back in. I would not use your system, as it won't work.
I did tanks for years without RO water and they turn out just fine.
In certain applications it may be necessary, but not all.
Its not...RO or nothing.
I like raising these discussions to make people think, and to gain knowledge myself.
 
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Katrina71

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I have tried both in a freshwater tank. Lots of algae with tap water. None with RODI. Just my personal experience.
 

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Please start your tap water build thread and link it to this discussion. I think we’d all like to follow along... Add lots of pictures too.
If you want a Tap water build thread look at mine :)
I don't do any water testing either(Only 1 No3 test since tank start)
Also just clip on LED light strips running on 12V Adaptor lol.
 

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If you want a Tap water build thread look at mine :)
I don't do any water testing either(Only 1 No3 test since tank start)
Also just clip on LED light strips running on 12V Adaptor lol.

Your tank looks fairly new... 2 or so months? Please keep it updated, documenting both the ups and the downs. :)

And yes, I still want the OP to start a build thread! :D
 

Reesj

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Your tank looks fairly new... 2 or so months? Please keep it updated, documenting both the ups and the downs. :)

And yes, I still want the OP to start a build thread! :D

Coming to about 4 months from start and about 3.5 months since 1st batch of damselfish went in.
 

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