Tap water or RODI?

[Neptune 555]

Hey.... For your large tanks that are FOWLR (no coral) do you use tap or RODI for your salt water?

Wondering how bad it is to rely on tap water?

Neptune...

 

[Flippers4pups]

Hey.... For your large tanks that are FOWLR (no coral) do you use tap or RODI for your salt water?

Wondering how bad it is to rely on tap water?

Neptune...

The problem with tap is that your never sure about the contaminants that are in it. You can obtain a water analysis report from your local water company, but it's only going to reflect that test at that one time. They add more or less disinfectants such as chloramine through out the year.

If you use tap and it's got high levels of copper, that copper will soak into your substrate and rock, that sand and rock will be useless to use if you decide to change over to a reef tank.

It's a risk in my book. It's best to have and use a RO/DI unit when ever your running a saltwater system.

 

[Oscaror]

Hey.... For your large tanks that are FOWLR (no coral) do you use tap or RODI for your salt water?

Wondering how bad it is to rely on tap water?

Neptune...

RODI

 

[JoshH]

I would think you would hear most people (Myself Included) saying RODI is still the best way to go. There are a couple out there who use tap water but those are getting fewer and fewer. Depending on your fish your not bound by frequent WC's in a FOWLR setup so an RODI isn't a huge expense in water.

 

[PDR]

RO/DI - tap water just isn't worth the risk imo.

 

[SPR1968]

RODI only, it’s one of the basics of reef/fish keeping really to avoid potential issues.

 

[Justfebreezeit]

My dad has used tap for his fowlr and a few mushrooms for 20 years. He doesn't have a fish under ten years old.

That being said, you couldn't pay me to use anything but RODI

 

[mfinn]

Hey.... For your large tanks that are FOWLR (no coral) do you use tap or RODI for your salt water?

Wondering how bad it is to rely on tap water?

Neptune...

I used tap water for 20 years on my softy tanks. But my tap water had really low tds. ( 25 and lower)
While I didn't know exactly what was in the water, I did know that it was ok as long as I didn't over feed and really stayed on top of tank maintenance. It was a every other day thing. Alot of carbon and gfo, and a multitude of other products.
I went through a lot of clean up crews and had alot of tangs that grazed algae all day.
It was a struggle, but it worked for a while.
Fast forward a few years and as I wanted nicer corals I realized that one of my biggest issues was the water quality.
So I eventually bought a rodi unit.

Depending on your water quality you might get away with it for a while. But it takes alot of joy out of it when your maintenance schedule is a almost daily thing.
Plus, most people who run fish only tanks tend ( what I've seen) to get into bigger fish that also contributes alot of algae fertilizer.

I also have to add, knowing what I do now, if when I first started in saltwater would I get a rodi unit, I would say definitely yes.

 

[alexanderthefishlover]

I find this funny. Did they use RODI in the 50’s? 60’s? How did people manage back then they also used regular salts not reef salts and had success. I think we over think this. Only thing I’d be worried about is the copper where I live and my pipes. I use coprisorb for that. I have a Kenya tree in tap water and it’s fine. Snails didn’t like the tap water so they were put into my reef system that’s distilled.

Other than that, the tap water is fine this far. I live in Vancouver BC Canada and our water is really clean here.