Tap water and bacteria

[jaws789832]

Does Tap water kill beneficial bacteria? If I rinse a sponge filter in tap water then re rinse it in salt water before putting it in the tank, will that kill any beneficial bacteria that was on the sponge? Just wondering because I do this sometimes to save the saltwater. If I just rinse it in saltwater it takes a bunch, but doing it this way its really only a dip in the saltwater.

 

[Opus]

Yes I'm fairly certain the freshwater/chlorine combo kills it all. Why not clean it when you do a water change assuming it is a large enough amount? That is what I used to do. I would fill my bucket with tank water and clean what needed to be cleaned in the bucket and then pour the water out.

 

[EmdeReef]

Assuming your tap water contains chlorine, it will kill some bacteria on contact and pretty much all over a longer exposure period. Gram positive bacteria appear more resistant to chlorine so you'll probably retain some over a short period of time. If you have live rocks in your tank I don't think you'll notice any issues though and the sponge will be re-colonized in a few days.

 

[jaws789832]

That's the problem, its not a large enough amount. Its only a 5 gallon tank (dwarf seahorse tank) and the filters need to be cleaned way more than the water changes

 

[jaws789832]

I have been doing it this way for a while but for some reason today I got to wondering, if I could be messing with the bio filter everytime I do this LOL

 

[Tahoe61]

I save the water from water changes and clean the sponge in that old display water.

 

[brandon429]

Our whole sand rinse thread is built on that question

tap doesn't sterilize our massive surface area rinses, its too brief of a rinse. the physical act of rinsing kills and removes more bacteria than the brief exposure to the low chlorine in the water



the rough dislodging associated with cleaning is the destruction to bac, and that's whether we're using salt, fresh water or tap.

ive plate counted and ran microbiological testing on extensive surfaces using various washes and rinses, including tap hot and cold, and have seen it placed in a lab among other cleaners in a beef processing plant's micro lab. tap is filthy, its a contributor of bacteria to a sample unless we're getting the tap as first drip out of the plant.


there are massive amnts of bio slicks that prevent the chlorine in its duration from affecting that sponge filter. old school fw aquarists and reefers do not fear the tap :)




you know that little black o ring not changed routinely on a faucet when you take off the directional nozzle? as bad as a toilet... though different biota (usually, not always) *and that's with no direct feeding, hot vs cold tap, all those years. nobody ever fed them raw ammonia or carbon for feed, yet they still attained some....hmmm

the little o ring never gets more sterilized as time goes on, the little black o ring gets worse, to the point its making people sick in some cases.

that's a fair example of a surface always in contact w tap that is not sterile

 

[EmdeReef]

That's the problem, its not a large enough amount. Its only a 5 gallon tank (dwarf seahorse tank) and the filters need to be cleaned way more than the water changes

You can also store the water for ~24hrs which should reduce free chlorine.

 

[jaws789832]

I thought about doing that but was worried that it would start to stink. We are talking a lot of dead baby brine shrimp here. If you ever hatched brin and left them for a few days the water gets pretty foul pretty fast lol

 

[EmdeReef]

I thought about doing that but was worried that it would start to stink. We are talking a lot of dead baby brine shrimp here. If you ever hatched brin and left them for a few days the water gets pretty foul pretty fast lol

I meant fill a bucket with freshwater and use it the next day to rinse the sponge.

 

[jaws789832]

Brandon that's probably what got me thinking about this. I read that thread the other day and was thinking about doing something like that to my reef. My sand is getting pretty bad and wanted to give it a good rinse

 

[jaws789832]

Thanks for all the tips

 

[Opus]

@Randy Holmes-Farley do you have an opinion on this?

 

[brandon429]

Jaws pls consider posting here, we're hungry for sand rinse examples:
https://www.reef2reef.com/threads/t...ead-aka-one-against-many.230281/#post-2681445


the very first post is a tap rinse on my super old pico reef for no good reason other than to show its harmless. from that, we fix about a gazillion cyano challenges heh. we do tank moves, upgrades, dwngrades, all skip cycle work.

we didn't use tap in that thread just to be cavalier, it has a direct purpose.

People using saltwater for the sand rinse run out too fast; they re-input half rinsed sand, and the cycle happens.

With tap, we've got an unlimited rinse source. Final rinse is saltwater, to evacuate the tap= sand rinse thread gold. results x12 for the inspection.

Rinsing out a sponge filter is WAY less intense as they're nearly always aerobic in nature (not rotten although plugged with aerated detritus needing rinsed to restore porosity)

any time we rinse a marine surface, the runoff has bacteria that are technically removed from the system as contributing nitrifiers. We are killing bac, and re introducing environmental bacteria, with every in depth cleaning we do.

its the net effect im discussing, rinsing or killing of incidental bacteria hasn't hurt us much in that thread with big money on the line.

 

[kecked]

Use a little sodium metabisulfate....not bisulfite. Also known as antichlor. It will kill the chlorine.