Tap water

[ggray-1]

If I was to sit a bucket of water straight out of the tap and do nothing to assuming the water is ok to use other than chlorine how long will it take to be chlorine free?

 

[Anonymous]

If well aerated and at room temperature I would give it 48 hours. I do this and circulate the water with a powerhead that has a Hagan quickfilter filled with activated carbon on it. I use that for topping off every day. I use a large plastic trash can. You need to leave the lid off for this to work.

 

[Everettnonothing]

I just use tap water. It has worked for 3 years now.

 

[SteveP]

The chlorine will evaporate, but the chloramines won't. You can use a product like Seachem's Prime to remove chloramines. I think carbon will also remove it, but I'm not sure. At any rate, using carbon will remove other toxins too.

Steve
8{I

 

[Reef Fever]

None of that will help the Phosphates, will it?

I used to top off my first tank with tap water. After months of hair algae battles, I will never again put tap water in my reef. I have not had any algae problems since I stuck with RO water.

 

[Anonymous]

I can't get any hair algae to grow anymore. Dang Turbo snails and hermit crabs eat it all. A shame, since I kind of like the way hair algae looks on the rocks. Maybe when I get some fish in the tank, some will start to come back.

 

[SteveP]

Reef Fever,

No, Prime and/or GAC will not remove phosphates. For that you need RO/DI or a Tap Water Purifier (which is really a DI filter).

Super Cow,

If I want to see something waving back and forth in my tank I'll take the sweeper tentacles of a Galaxea, Euphyllia, or Favial over hair algae any day!

Steve
8{I

 

[Anonymous]

ggray-1-look at it this way-the water is the single most important environment that the animals in your tank are dependent upon for their quality of life(the better the water, the better the life)the better quality water you start out with, the easier it'll be to maitain that quality in the tank.this is the logic behind using an rodi unit to get the purest water possible.there are plenty of people who use tap water-some locales in the u.s. have tap of good quality-most prob'ly don't.not only that, but sometimes materials are added to water supplies by the local authorities to treat a people related water quality issue(like algicides, coagulants, etc. without ever notifying you!(pers. comm. w/ salem, n.h. township, and epa ).stevep is right about chloramines- which contain ammonia(!), and are much more stable than reg. chlor.
i'm not saying you can't have good results with tap, but investing in a decent rodi unit will help avoid possible future unknowns that MAY hurt your reef investment(which will prob'ly end up being worth alot more than the cost of rodi water, unit and all)food for thought

 

[Anonymous]

My reef aquarium has a higher concentration of phosphates than does my tap water. But I have no hair algae.

I can't get any hair algae to grow anymore. Dang Turbo snails and hermit crabs eat it all. A shame, since I kind of like the way hair algae looks on the rocks. Maybe when I get some fish in the tank, some will start to come back.

I solved this problem in another aquarium by getting a clown triggerfish. It will efficiently rid the aquarium of all undesirable hair-algae-eating pests like snails, hermit crabs and lawnmower blennies, and will even happily harrass a tang into starvation. Yes a clowntriggerfish will be a happy answer to your problems. Want mine? My 4 year old named him "tuffy" due to the fact that whenever I put my hand in his tank lots of red stuff drips out of various wounds on my hand when I remove it.

It is a fine addition to any aquarium, and will have it looking like a hair-algae slime pit in no time. As an added benefit, whenever you feed this fish, it will rip all the food apart and actually miss consuming about 1/3 of it, ensuring copious quantities of ammonia and nitrates for hair-algae fertilizer.

 

[Mouse]

But id say youll get the best effect from the Clown Trigger methodology if you keep it in a 20G nano. Beleave it or not fins can be trimmed, so dont be put off by wayward apendages.

 

[Anonymous]

I want a balance, not an algae slime pit. Right now I'm getting overrun by caleurpa racemosa, although there is a mix of razor caleurpa and halimeda in there as well. I'm letting it expand, since I do plan on stocking some fish in August, including a couple of tangs and a flame angel.

I suspect things will balance themselves when that happens eventually anyway.

 

[yellowfiji]

Besides chlorine and phosphate, what about the metal in tap water? Is the concentration high enough to do any harm?

 

[JohnD]

ggray,

Do yourself a favor an buy a RO unit. In the long run, you will be happy you did.

 

[danmhippo]

ggray, there are too many things in tap that you wouldn't want in your tank, silica, heavy metal compounds, chromine, phosphate and nitrate. GAC would not solve these problems.

I used to be one of those swear by the tap.......Until I started using RODI. Life is certainly much easier now with RODI.


Anemone of State, Next time try the niger............I never named my fish, but if I have to, I'd name him wimp. Only once I was bitten by the wimp, but quickly learned to shove him away first before I feed other fishes. By the way, the wimp leaves my shrimps alone. I would assume it will do the same for the crabs. I do try very hard though not to remind the wimp how good fresh seafood taste like by only feeding him selcon soaked flakes..........hehehe......

 

[HuBu]

instead of having to go thru all this trouble of waiting, just go to a grocery store and buy water from their water vending machines. the water is filtered and runs thru carbon. i personally use tap water since i know that gainesville's tap water is perfect for reef tank. all the LFS use it.