Poll: Top Off Water

[Origami]

I'm curious what our forum members are using for their top-off water. Namely, what percentage of us use purified water, whether it's RO/DI or distilled.
 
Poll closes at the end of the month.

(To answer, you might have to use a web browser. I'm not sure that Tapatalk works with polls.)

[YHSublime]

So far, a good trend

[DFR]

Just to add to the data set… I set up a 10g for my cousin maybe 2 years ago that runs exclusively on tap water for top-offs (and 0 water changes).  I was actually SHOCKED when I visited her during the summer that not all the corals I “donated” were dead.  She had two Sunkist bounces were thriving (I’ve never seen the greens glow like they do in that tank), and a gorgonian that is still alive (though it looks looks to be the exact same size).  I already offered her a Godspawn bounce frag as it just split.  I probably won’t make it back there until the holidays, but I’m curious as to how that will do/look in her system.

[Origami]

3 minutes ago, DFR said:

Just to add to the data set… I set up a 10g for my cousin maybe 2 years ago that runs exclusively on tap water for top-offs (and 0 water changes).  I was actually SHOCKED when I visited her during the summer that not all the corals I “donated” were dead.  She had two Sunkist bounces were thriving (I’ve never seen the greens glow like they do in that tank), and a gorgonian that is still alive (though it looks looks to be the exact same size).  I already offered her a Godspawn bounce frag as it just split.  I probably won’t make it back there until the holidays, but I’m curious as to how that will do/look in her system.

That's interesting. I'm on well water and had an ICP-OES test done a few years ago on my source water. It turns out that it's very clean (high in CO2, though) but there are a few metals that I don't want to accumulate, so I just go ahead and run a 2-stage DI with separate anion and cation resin stages. The cation resin attracts and binds to the positively charged metal ions while the anion resin latches onto the negatively charged ones (including dissolved CO2 in the form of bicarbonate and carbonate ions). Since my ICP-OES test indicated few negatively charged ions of concern, I mostly watch my cation resin rather than the anion resin which tends to deplete very fast because of dissolved CO2. 

 

At one time, we had a member here that pretty much ran his tank with DC tap water and a dechlorinator. He was a bit of an outlier, but was active here for many years. That's why the poll. I'm curious if anybody else is doing this (or will admit to it). And, if they are, I'd like to hear more about their experience and successes/challenges.

[AlanM]

when I was first thinking about getting started I visited Congressional Aquarium in Rockville.  They had a saltwater section, but are mostly freshwater.  The guys working there advised me to just use tap water to make up seawater and for top-off because it already has minerals in it so why should I spend money to remove them and just put it back with dosing and salt mix.  /shudder

[nburg]

I like the 100% trend. I say tap water is probably fine 99% of the time, but I don't want to take that change that one time there's a spike in metals or gunk it fouls my tank. Many areas of DC still have some lead pipes and say they change the pH of the water slightly, it can dissolve the scale and leach metals/lead/copper. (I think I read that's what happened in Flint, MI, they stopped treated for a high pH and the lower pH dissolved decades of scale on the pipes, exposing the now unencapsualted metal pipes.)

[YHSublime]

1 minute ago, nburg said:

I like the 100% trend. I say tap water is probably fine 99% of the time, but I don't want to take that change that one time there's a spike in metals or gunk it fouls my tank. Many areas of DC still have some lead pipes and say they change the pH of the water slightly, it can dissolve the scale and leach metals/lead/copper. (I think I read that's what happened in Flint, MI, they stopped treated for a high pH and the lower pH dissolved decades of scale on the pipes, exposing the now unencapsualted metal pipes.)

 

When I took a summer vacation about 3 years back, my tank sitter used tapwater in my top off, essentially about 10 gallons of tap water into a 22 gallon tank. I didn't lose everything, but I lost a lot, mostly acropora. 

[nburg]

Probably the chlorine and chloramines.  in my younger, freshwater days, I had so much better success when I would let my tap water set in a bucket over night before a water change to let the chorine evaporate out.