Tap Water?

theevoys

theevoys

SW Newbie
Apr 9, 2004
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Prescott, AZ
www.streamline-webdesign.com
Hi everyone. I am deciding whether I need to do anything to the tap water before I use it in the tank. Here are the ONLY contaminants in the water. There is no mention of adding chlorine although the report lists TTHM and then makes a note that this number is from chlorination of drinking water. If you would like to look at the report to help me and let me know what you think here it is.

http://www.cityofprescott.net/pdf/Misc/water-quality-report-2003.pdf

Here are the few contaminates listed:
Arsenic 9.1 ppb
Chromium 5ppb
Copper .067ppm
Nitrate 1.3ppm
TTHM (trihalomethanes) 2.9ppb

Then there is a huge list of substances non-existant in our water. Thanks for your input once again! Sorry I have so many questions... I just want to start out right!
Jason
 
The things that concern me are the nitrate and copper. Our water also has them, so I have gone with RO water.

Because I think municipalities usually measure nitrate as NO3-N, the value for NO3 is really about 5.7, which is significant.

Although the toxicity will vary by species, 0.067 ppm copper sounds very high. To give some perspective, Martin Moe recommends 0.15-0.3 ppm as a therapeutic level for amyloodinium. You might want to think about putting your tap water through a copper removing resin before using it if you plan to have inverts.
 
I'd use the tap water. I see nothing that would warant using RO or RO/DI IMO.

I've used mine for years without problems. here are my levels:

Arsenic = 10ppb
Chromium = 5ppb
Copper = .o51ppm
Nitrate = 1ppm
Nitrite = .5ppm
No TTHM on report

Ray
 
ro water is reverse osmosis. you cant really argue that tap water is better than ro water, but tap water usually dosent hurt harty speices of fish and inverts, i know alot of people use it. im deciding myself weither or not to get an ro unit. i found a 10 gallon per day unit for around 100 bucks. basically most ro units(from what i have researched) remove about 99% of metals, phosphates, nitrates, and chlorine. basically an ro unit will turn your tap water into distilled water, which in theory will have few(if any) minerals or contaminants(things that could be harmfull to inverts and fish).


but someone correct me if im wrong on something, since i dont have an ro unit, i only know what i have read :laugh:

oh yeah, how do you guys get your readings like that? do you have to buy a special test kit, or do you call the water company or something? thanx
 
RO water still has minerals- that's what makes it a better choice than distilled.

With all the things that might go wrong or even will go wrong, for me using RO/DI water was a no brainer. I want to control everything I am able to, as there is so much I cannot.
 
what do you ask for? or are they supplied in the local paper? i was thinking about calling or emailing them, but dont know what to ask
 
My city mails the water quality report once a year to everyone. However, all you have to do is call the Watet Company and ask for the most recent Water Quality Report for your city. I found mine online by simply typing in google the city, state, and then adding water quality report. They ARE required by law to supply this information as requested. Good luck!
Jason
 
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