RO a must?

[pumbaafoot]

Well I will be starting my first reef tank this week. 24 gal. I am definately planning on letting my lr and ls cycle for a good month or two. My question is ro a must when starting out? If so where can you obtain it without investing in a unit. Are there any alternatives?

 

[R.yumaDaddy?]

Welcome to RS. You can buy RO water from your LFS or wal-mart. I just use treated tap water, but others may advise against it. It works for me anyway.

 

[cheeks69]

Tap water can be a serious problem in most municipalities but I've never had a problem with it. What I would do is get a TDS meter and check your tap water if the total dissolved solids are high then go exclusively RO/DI water.

 

[fulinn]

I bought an inexpensive Aquarium Water Filter which gives me DI ( deIonized ) water which is working for well for me.

Bonnie

 

[pumbaafoot]

Walmart? I never would have thought. How much is it roughly? I guess I will have to check it out. Thanks everyone for the input.

 

[R.yumaDaddy?]

hmmmmm... maybe 29 or 39 cents a gallon, I think.

 

[pumbaafoot]

I pressume they have 5 gal jugs or somthing you can
take?

 

[Witfull]

depending on your area,,,,some places have those water dispensing machines where you can fill up 5g waterbottles.

 

[mempho reefer]

Welcome aboard plumbaafoot:welcomera

Use RO. It's the safest bet. As mentioned earlier most LFSs sell it for about forty cents a gallon. Go to your local hardware or home store and pick up two or three or four five gallon plastic gas cans or water containers. Rinse them well and then make sure they only carry your water. Just to be safe I wrote H2O:swmfish: in large letters on mine. I get my water from the LFS about once every twe or three weeks. I even have them mix my saltwater. That sells for a dollar a gallon. If you choose to do that make sure you ask what kind of salt they use. I like Instant Ocean and that happens to be what my store uses so it works for me.

Good luck with the new tank and have fun

 

[lcstorc]

Whatever water you chose test it first. Run every test you have and see how it measures up. Phosphates seem to be one of the more common problems.
Peace
Lynn

 

[Yarr]

in a simple answer to the threads topic..


Yes.

 

[fidojoe]

In AZ we have franchise stores called "Water & Ice" or "Water 'n Ice" and they only sell RO filtered, so it makes it easy for me. Just go in and fill my 5g jugs (have 5 of them now) and they are 25 cents/gal. to refill.

Most grocery stores will sell RO water in gallon jugs also, and thats what I used to use, until I got sick of loading and unloading 10-20 single bottles at a time. Just look for the "filtered by Reverse Osmosis" label.

 

[pumbaafoot]

well I picked up my 24 gal and filled it with ro compiments of walmart. LR comes in thursday so I will be beginning my journey soon. Thanks everyone

 

[Woodstock]

Welcome to Reef Sanctuary~~

I use ro/di for my reef; tap for my pony tank. If algae becomes an issue with it, I will switch it to ro/di also.

 

[cecilio]

i use a dionized water, using a kold-ster dionizer filter and it works for me, and no water waste, i conrct the filter to my city water line and then storage this water in a tank and from there using a pump in the storage tank i pump water to my reef tanks for water changes

 

[sKuLLy]

Using tap water made life difficult for me with algae. Then I bought an inexpesive RO unit and fishing was much easier. Just my 2 cents.

 

[misbehavior]

I bought an RO unit I use the run off to do my Laundry, no water wasted. I love not having to lift and carry the heavy containers. I also like knowing that the water quality is good every time I do a change.

 

[12g Dude]

You can buy a decent RO unit off eBAY for around $80. It's worth every penny compared to lugging 5 gallon jugs to and from Walmart or the LFS. (unless your looking for a reason to got to the LFS?) My RO is under the sink, plumbed to the icemaker in the fridge, a faucet at the sink and run to a 40 gallon Plastic Garbage can (plastic) with an autoshut-off. It fills itself after I deplete it with a waterchange. all I do is plug in the heater and circulation pump, add salt and wella....Fish water. Total price for RO, Auto shut-off (Float Valve) and container....About $115.