Because there are other things boiling and Brita don't get rid off
No chlorine is good, but do you know how much Calcium, lead, or any other chemicals they are in it? RO water allows you to start with simple water, and nothing else. You then add the salt and you know you have good water for the animals.
*RODI
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.
The chlorine is put into the atmosphere in boiling water. The reason not to use boiled water would be for a couple reasons.
Copper is one of the main ones since it can kill inverts (including corals), but really there are a bunch of things that could be in tap water which could poison a tank.
Here's some actual data for what I consider to possibly be the most serious problem with tap water: copper.
New York City Water report for 2022.
Section titled" Lead and Copper Rule Residential Tap Sampling"
356 residential taps were tested.
10% of them had more than 0.194 ppm copper (194 ug/L)
the highest had 3.2 ppm copper
Thus, IMO, for copper alone, the tap water in NYC is unsuitable for at least 10% of the folks living there.
While I do not really have a good understanding of exactly how much copper is OK, Fauna Marin says that ten fold lower values (0.02 mg/L= 20 ug/L) can kill some corals.
Copper - Fauna Marin
www.faunamarin.de
The "Report of Detected Compounds" at the bottom:
- Looking at the copper specifically, they mention the 90th percentile for 50 homes sampled was 0.245 (this means that 90% of the 50 homes tested had copper levels of 0.245 or lower);
- The testing they use for copper is only sensitive to 0.05.
- LC50 for Copper when tested on different inverts* (a mussel species, an oyster species, a copepod species, and two urchin species - one of the urchins was the sand dollar you have; a different test** used a limpet, a crab, and a mussel) ranged from ~0.002 to 0.2 (LC50 being a toxicology term for the dose needed before half of a given population dies from the toxin); the LC50 varies from one species to the other, and it varies dependent on a number of different factors (such as the bioavailability of the form of copper in the water).
Personally, just looking at the odds of getting a damaging to lethal level of copper in your water, I wouldn't use your water without DI.
*Test Report 1
**Test Report 2
Differential sensitivity of three marine invertebrates to copper assessed using multiple biomarkers - PubMed
Understanding how biomarkers relate to each other on exposure to particular contaminants in different species is key to their widespread application in environmental management. However, few studies have systematically used multiple biomarkers in more than a single species to determine the...pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
2 ) Total ammonia (Ammonia as Nitrogen) ranged from 0.25 to 0.98 ppm, averaging ~0.62 ppm between the three treatment facilities. So right out of the tap, you would meaningful amounts of ammonia in your water.It depends on the rainwater, but - given how sensitive inverts are to copper - I wouldn't assume so. To quote the top link below, "copper was above the ADWG (2.0 ppm) in eight samples out of 365 samples," (ADWG meaning Australian Drinking Water Guidelines) - 2.0 ppm may not seem like much, but it is substantially higher than the ~0.002 to 0.2 ppm LC50 of Copper.
Lead, Zinc, Copper, and Cadmium Content of Water from South Australian Rainwater Tanks
Rainwater is consumed for drinking water in many parts of Australia, either preferentially over municipal water or in regional or remote areas, because rainwater is the primary source of water. Previous rainwater studies in other areas in Australia have ...www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
I agree - but just saying - the OP may be interested - there was a long thread about using tap water for topping off. I can't find it currently.
Depending on the levels - it may or may not (my gut feeling is that it's not good enough). "The Brita Standard and Elite filters are both certified for the reduction of aesthetic chlorine under NSF/ANSI 42, meaning that they should remove chlorine to levels low enough so they do not cause taste and odor problems in your drinking water. Brita filters are not certified to reduce chloramines."
www.reef2reef.com
You need to test TDS - thats correct - however, more importantly is/are various toxin levels/metals/etc. For example a TDS of 3 if the "dissolved solid" is sodium/chloride is not an issue. If it's cupric chloride, over time - that COULD be a problem. etc - obviously - the higher the TDS the more risk for an unwanted issue
This is the way.
That's it, I'm starting the cult, lol
well, as usual, if it were practical everybody would be doing that. So that answers that.
Silicates are actually good and a lot of old timers dose silicates to keep Dino’s at bay to run low nutrient systems.
