what kind of water do you use to replace evaported water?

[psariandras]

what kind of water do you use to replace evaporated water?

Do you use tap or well water? Is it true that it is bad to use RO or RO/DI water?

Our well water is hard and has no chlorine(at least as far as I have tested) and I was thinking about using it as replacement water... is this a bad idea?

[rwspear76]

I use well water all the time, it is run through a single whole house filter.Did you use different water than your well water to fill your tank? I have heard that RO/DI is bad if thats all you use, but I have no experience with that. If you have well water that isn't run through ro.di, I would use it. I have no problems with it. The hardnes will probably affect your ph differently than mine but straight out of the tap the PH is about 7.1, you may also want to consider if you have any ro crops near your house. Do they use ferts and pesticides....

[cav]

You should use RO water for evap top ups. Who told you this was bad?

[cav]

I use well water all the time, it is run through a single whole house filter.Did you use different water than your well water to fill your tank? I have heard that RO/DI is bad if thats all you use, but I have no experience with that. If you have well water that isn't run through ro.di, I would use it. I have no problems with it. The hardnes will probably affect your ph differently than mine but straight out of the tap the PH is about 7.1, you may also want to consider if you have any ro crops near your house. Do they use ferts and pesticides....

Just noticed you have a planted freshwater tank and not a reef tank so your giving bad advice here

[Digital]

I add tap water to my planted tanks

[cav]

what kind of water do you use to replace evaporated water?

Do you use tap or well water? Is it true that it is bad to use RO or RO/DI water?

Our well water is hard and has no chlorine(at least as far as I have tested) and I was thinking about using it as replacement water... is this a bad idea?

I think the forum is posting in the wrong areas again for some reason. Just to clear things up are you wanting info about a saltwater tank and not a planted tank?

[Pufferpunk]

I never top off any of my FW tanks, as I do large, weekly WC on them. Toppping off a FW tank constantly, without removing some of that water weekly will cause your water to become hard & acidic. It's called: Old Tank Syndrome.

[Subliminal]

RO/DI always for this kid...as long as we're talking about the salty side here and not fresh. I always used well water in my FW tanks (Until I discovered the joys of reefing).

[psariandras]

no no I have a FW planted, but I am talking about the salty side right now. :) I guess I need to update my profile. I have a 55 gallon cycling that will be a reef tank.

I used all RO water to fill the tank, then I added the salt mix. I have some extra salt water created for changes. Somewhere I was reading that if RO water is used to replace evaporated water that the pH and alk will go down. Because RO water has low pH.
Our well water is very hard and alkaline pH is 8.4 and alkanlity reads as high as the strip tests show. There are nearby fields that use fertilizer, not sure what kind exactly. I DO KNOW that they use chicken waste once a year, that I do know for sure :) lol.


so I should use RO water to replace evaporated water for the reef tank?

thanks for the help :)

[Pufferpunk]

YES

[salty420]

yes ro water for top offs on sw tanks :)

[rwspear76]

Just noticed you have a planted freshwater tank and not a reef tank so your giving bad advice here



For some reason I thought he was talking freshwater.... sorry if I offended you....... man o man....getting my chops busted for trying to be helpful :headshake2:

[clown-lover]

I use RO/DI water for my top off's but will be adding it with a twist here shortly.. At my last club meeting I met a local reefer who gave me a great idea and it makes sense. When water comes out of RO/DI it is acidic.. He places his water into a 32 gallon trash container half filled with argonite sand. Because the water is acidic the buffering capabilities of the aragonite occur and raises the PH of the water. He states that the PH of the water becomes alkaline (ph of 8.2 - I haven't tested this but plan on doing so)..

He has run a biologic tank (no skimmer or sump..) this way for 10 to 12 years.. If you look at my blog you can see his reef tank.

[Catpicklesdog]

I always use RO/DI for top offs - now. I used to use Brita filtered water and ended up with extremely high phosphates and a very bad case of cyano.

[Subliminal]

If you don't use ro/di for top offs, you might as well just not use it at all. All that time to filter out the bad stuff for your main water, but then a daily dose of high tds water.

[Sploke]

I use my well water for top-offs and water changes. I know I'll probably get jumped on for it, but it has been working out well so far.

[Subliminal]

No jumping on. You do what you want until it proves to be ineffective. Much like QTing...some people can go a lifetime w/o a problem, other people have issues with their first fish.

I recently got a TDS meter. Buy.com had them for $5 with free shipping. My RO/DI water shows zero when i make it, and maybe 3 or 4 after sitting for a few days.

My well water is ~260 on the meter. Egads!

[fsn77]

I use RO/DI water for top-offs. I add alkalinity buffer to it, though, so it's not straight RO/DI. Our house is plumbed with copper pipes and comes out of the tap with a conductivity of nearly 300 uS. After RO/DI filtration, the conductivity drops to 0 - 1 uS. While 300 uS is not high compared to a lot of readings one might get in from a natural stream, there's no cheap and easy way to determine what's in our tap water creating those conductivity levels. I'd rather be safe than sorry when it comes to protecting the thousands of dollars spent on our reef tank.

Unfortunately, well water is likely to be more variable from location to location within an area than city tap water is in the same size area. There's many factors that effect the quality of well water -- well depth, bedrock type, activities upstream, and on and on. It's hard to say if using straight well water is good, bad, or otherwise without having the specific well tested periodically. It is important to remember that well water quality can vary even on a daily basis, but certainly seasonally in areas with heavy agriculture.

[Sploke]

Yeah I'm really interested in checking my well water for TDS. It comes out of the tap with 0 nitrates, 0 phosphates, 9-12 dKh and about 250ppm Ca.

[kay-bee]

...My RO/DI water shows zero when i make it, and maybe 3 or 4 after sitting for a few days...

What do you think is causing that? Has the container it's kept in ever been used to store any other liquid in the past (SW, etc?), or is the device (tubing, cup, container, etc) used to transfer the RO/DI water to the tank exposed to SW?

[Subliminal]

Naw, it's probably just because I'm stupid. ;) I kind of use whatever bucket i have handy for waste water, rinse out and then use it for mixing salt and then maybe for transporting my top off water to my reservoir.

Considering I don't feed much, have a low fish load and the most I ever see is 3 or 4 on the tds meter, i don't think it really matters...or at least i don't have much nuisance algae anymore so i don't really care.

I guess 10 seconds with a marker could probably solve my problems, though. ;)

[Slappy*McFish]

Yeah I'm really interested in checking my well water for TDS. It comes out of the tap with 0 nitrates, 0 phosphates, 9-12 dKh and about 250ppm Ca.

Nice.

[rscuddvr]

I've had fresh tanks for years, recently switched one over to salt. I used to use tap water(city lines. not a well), and just added the Chlor-out as I filled. Since going salt on one of the tanks, I've been getting well water from my local supplier(they carry corals and marine fish exclusively). I use a 5gal water jug and add salt to it, and let it set overnight. So far, that's been working out for me.

[Fishieness]

I use RO/DI water for my top off's but will be adding it with a twist here shortly.. At my last club meeting I met a local reefer who gave me a great idea and it makes sense. When water comes out of RO/DI it is acidic.. He places his water into a 32 gallon trash container half filled with argonite sand. Because the water is acidic the buffering capabilities of the aragonite occur and raises the PH of the water. He states that the PH of the water becomes alkaline (ph of 8.2 - I haven't tested this but plan on doing so)..

He has run a biologic tank (no skimmer or sump..) this way for 10 to 12 years.. If you look at my blog you can see his reef tank.

people do it but IMO, unless you are having trouble keeping ALK, pH, an Ca in check, it is really very unecessary. only the water evaporates, nothing else. Only water evaporates, so adding salts and other buffers is really unecessary unless it is for some type of two part solution. But once again, that should only be added when needed.

[Pufferpunk]

You must not add salt to top off water! Salt does not evaporate & your SG will rise sky high.

[psariandras]

In a fishkeeping magazine, in an advertisment, it does say not to use RO water for make up water for evaporation.

The ad is for a supplement or a filter though, so maybe that is why it says not to use RO water.
I can give the name and page, I'm sure some of you have the same magazine.

[Pufferpunk]

It's wrong, ignore it--it's trying to sell you something, just like the LFS.

[psariandras]

I'm just starting out my tank.. the pH is 8.1. Should I raise the pH before I start to stock the tank?(the tank is in a fishless cycle atm)

sorry to be a newb - but want is a tds meter?

Also: my tank has no sump(I fudged up and bought a tank that has all tempered glass :( )

btw, thanks for the advice, all :)

[Pufferpunk]

pH is perfect.