Reefing heresy

[Anemone]

How terrible would it be to give your various filter feeders nannochloropsis grown with TAP WATER (mixed with the appropriate amount of salt and fertilizer mix)? This seemed to be the suggestion on a website giving culture instructions, they suggested that tap water would have advantages over RO. The nanno would use the extra nutrients (N, P, trace), and any extra Mg and Ca in the water would be put to good use. Probably most of us wouldn't take the risk but it seemed like a provocative idea. My own tap water generally runs 5 ppm nitrate, 0.5 ppm phosphate, 10 degrees GH and 6 degrees KH. Anyone tempted?

[AlanM]

It probably isn't the worst thing ever, and if the nanno isn't as picky as a full reef from a chemistry point of view seems like it would be fine, but if you're already mixing up salt water with reef salt that reef salt has the right amount of calcium and magnesium and such.  The fertilizer has the right amount of everything else.  I'd just do what you're already doing for your reef and attribute the tap water advice to be geared to people who are interested in shortcuts.

[Anemone]

But I LOVE shortcuts. (mods, I meant this to be in General Discussion, apologies for the misfire and it'd be great if you could move the thread, thanks.)

[YHSublime]

FWIW, I rinse my nanos filter sponges and equipment in tap water. I've done top offs with tap water, albeit small. Don't tell anybody.

 

 

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[Anemone]

Mum's the word.

Seriously though, that's pretty interesting. When topping off with tap, do you use a dechlorinator?

[AlanM]

Moved.  I am a fan of shortcuts too, but I've been more successful looking at reef tanks more and more as a long-term discipline.  It's more a means than an end.  It punishes people who can't keep their hands out of the tank messing with things and who are looking for the quickest way to do something.  

 

Also, shame on Isaac for topping off with tap water.  I bet he even lets his dogs drink tap water instead of giving them lovingly bottled and curated mineral water that would be more fitting for dogs of their good looks and stature.

[Anemone]

Thanks for the move and the perspective.

 

For a brief time I had considered making tank water (not just topoff) starting from tap water. The idea was to use fresh water plants to scrub out the N and P first (pretty quick with the right plants), then decant the water into a barrel and mix in the salt, and refill the plant tank with fresh tap water for next time. Then my better half approved the RO system expense, so it never got tried by me.

 

Anyway, the nannochloropsis idea got me wondering what people thought about this concept. Mostly I think we would collectively fear the unknown. The constancy of RO certainly has strong appeal.

[YHSublime]

Moved.  I am a fan of shortcuts too, but I've been more successful looking at reef tanks more and more as a long-term discipline.  It's more a means than an end.  It punishes people who can't keep their hands out of the tank messing with things and who are looking for the quickest way to do something.  

 

Also, shame on Isaac for topping off with tap water.  I bet he even lets his dogs drink tap water instead of giving them lovingly bottled and curated mineral water that would be more fitting for dogs of their good looks and stature.

 

I don't do it often, but I 100% do rinse all my media for the filter in tapwater, including the carbon, the sponges, and the ceramic bio pellets, whatever they are good for....

 

Jason does mix all his water (saltwater) with tapwater, and dechlorinator from what I remember correctly. Absolutely the dogs get tap!

 

 

Thanks for the move and the perspective.

 

For a brief time I had considered making tank water (not just topoff) starting from tap water. The idea was to use fresh water plants to scrub out the N and P first (pretty quick with the right plants), then decant the water into a barrel and mix in the salt, and refill the plant tank with fresh tap water for next time. Then my better half approved the RO system expense, so it never got tried by me.

 

Anyway, the nannochloropsis idea got me wondering what people thought about this concept. Mostly I think we would collectively fear the unknown. The constancy of RO certainly has strong appeal.

 

I thought about doing something similar, but once it worked out, it was more trouble than it was to just get an RO/DI. Probably cheaper in the long run as well, with less headache.

[mogurnda]

I don't see a problem as far as N and P.  Most of us probably add more nutrients when we feed than would come from tap water.   My concerns would be that your nutrient levels would vary based on whatever's happening with the public water supply, and that there may be metals in the water that you don't want.  You could deal with the metals, as well as the chlorine, using carbon.

 

I could probably use tap water for the macroalgae/slug system, but I am currently using water from the still because I want to control the input. 

[Jon Lazar]

I'm sure you could culture nanno with tap water without crashing your tank if you really wanted to, but what's the point? 

 

Tap water is going to add a fair bit of chlorine/chloramine to your tank.  It may not be enough to kill your fish and corals, depending on how much you add and how delicate your corals are.  You'll also get sediment (including metal sediment) from tap water.  Every now and then the chlorine levels and sediment will spike significantly. 

 

Tap water isn't "good" for a reef tank.  I would skip culturing nanno at all, rather than pour 2-liter bottles of tap water into my tank.

[paul b]

I ran my reef on 100% tap water for the first 15 or so years. No problems up to that point.

[Anemone]

I'm new but really glad to be here. Imagine the reception one might get for bringing up an unconventional idea on some of the larger sites (maybe I'm imagining things). Thanks to all for being so welcoming and such a good group for bouncing ideas.

 

For chlorine/chloramine, a dechlorinator should work. They are also supposed to chelate heavy metals. Variability in nutrients might occur. Whether this is a problem depends on how much and what, I suppose.

 

Paul B, I'm surprised you used water and not, I don't know, supermodel sweat?

(Seriously though, what kind of salt did you have? Is this all covered in your book?)

[Origami]

I'm new but really glad to be here. Imagine the reception one might get for bringing up an unconventional idea on some of the larger sites (maybe I'm imagining things). Thanks to all for being so welcoming and such a good group for bouncing ideas.

 

For chlorine/chloramine, a dechlorinator should work. They are also supposed to chelate heavy metals. Variability in nutrients might occur. Whether this is a problem depends on how much and what, I suppose.

 

Paul B, I'm surprised you used water and not, I don't know, supermodel sweat?

(Seriously though, what kind of salt did you have? Is this all covered in your book?)

 

Ken, besides eliminating potential undesirable components from your water, using RO/DI provides you with a stable baseline from which you build your artificial salt water. That is, for a given salt mix, you'll get fairly consistent levels of calcium when you mix things in the same proportions every time. Because tap water may already have high levels of calcium in it, you may find this part of the resulting mix a bit high. The same would hold true for other ions found in tap water: They just add to your mix. This effect can be magnified if you're using tap water for top-off. In that case, it's like a constant dose of calcium-laden topoff. Just watch your parameters and make sure that things behave the way you want them to.

 

Finally, if you live in the region, you'll know that many of the municipal water lines are flushed at least once a year. This tends to dislodge junk that's built up in the supply lines. This is also about the time that they'll bump up the chlorine/chloramine levels, too. They'll generally let you know when they're going to do that. To be safe, if using tap water for your change water, it's probably best to avoid making a batch in the days around that time.

[Anemone]

Good point about the annual water system flush. Right now this is just a thought experiment for me, but it'd be important to know when that happens if anyone wants to try this.

 

Back to the original question, it seems that most agree that adding (say) a few percent of the tank volume as dechlorinated, algae or plant conditioned tap water would probably be fine, though there was some concern about adding unknown trace metals (and we'd want to avoid the water system flush time). Whether we culture freshwater plants and then turned that into salt water, or made salt water and cultured macro or micro algae would be a matter of choice.

Most of us, it seems, would be uncomfortable using that water for major water changes, and some would not want to add a drop. (Query what water the commercial liquid feeds use, I'm not sure they all say.)

 

Besides being interested in short cuts, I was also asking because cost can be a big factor for people deciding whether they can get into the hobby. RO/DI systems can be a significant expense, and it could help some people if there was a way to get by without them, even if (say) that came with some stocking restrictions.

 

 

How do people feel about fish less cycling using salt mixed with dechlorinated tap water? Generally we are told to do a 100% water change after cycling, and one could switch to RO/DI at that point. Setting up the RO/DI after the rest of the tank is set up helps spread out the costs and gives something to do besides waiting around trying not to convince one's self to be patient.

[paul b]

Paul B, I'm surprised you used water and not, I don't know, supermodel sweat?

(Seriously though, what kind of salt did you have? Is this all covered in your book?)

I started my tank before they invented water, we kept out fish in damp sawdust. (the dampness was of course from Supermodel sweat) So I took my "water" from here. Yes, that is the East River that goes past Manhattan. (yes, it is covered in my book)

 

Edited February 18, 2016 by paul b

[Origami]

 RO/DI systems can be a significant expense, and it could help some people if there was a way to get by without them, even if (say) that came with some stocking restrictions.

 

 

How do people feel about fish less cycling using salt mixed with dechlorinated tap water? Generally we are told to do a 100% water change after cycling, and one could switch to RO/DI at that point. Setting up the RO/DI after the rest of the tank is set up helps spread out the costs and gives something to do besides waiting around trying not to convince one's self to be patient.

 

RO/DI systems are are a minor expense for most people, actually. You'll find that electricity is a far higher cost. Let's take for example the case of return pump selection. Just the return pump. Forget the lights, skimmer and circulation pumps and the like.

 

Acquisition cost: $200. Regarding operational cost, in rough figures, a 200W pump will cost you $200 a year to operate while an 80W pump will cost you $80 a year for the same operation twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week (assuming roughly $0.10/kwhr). 

 

Compare that to an RO/DI system with a similar acquisition cost. Operational costs are figured by materials used (ignore the cost of water source since it's so cheap). Assumning $40 a year for a filter pack, and about $30/year for DI resin (assuming a decent rejection ratio at the membrane). Figure replacing the membrane every 3 years or, about $15/year on average. Total: $85/year for RO/DI water.

 

So, really, the cost of RO/DI is similar to running an efficient return pump on most systems. 

 

Now, if you're on a well (as I am) and the water has high CO2, the expense of DI resin can be a lot higher without making some changes in water treatment.

[AlanM]

I am not trying to be abrasive by saying this, but anyone for whom a $200 RO/DI system is an unacceptable expense will struggle with keeping a successful saltwater aquarium. I am sure it is possible with a lot of effort and ingenuity, but it would be hard and with that kind of financial limitation maybe another hobby would be a better fit.

[Jon Lazar]

I don't think the recommendation for "a 100% water change after cycling" is a good one.  Think about it: what are you trying to remove with the water change?  The cycle itself removes ammonia and nitrite, and the anaerobic portion of the cycle removes nitrate.

 

IME, if you add fish gradually to your tank the cycle is nearly undetectable anyways.  It's fully undetectable if you start with healthy, fresh live rock.  (If you start an aquarium "Tanked" style, where you dump 100 large tangs in a sterile aquarium all in one go, then you can expect a big cycle.)

 

I don't recommend a huge water change post-cycle unless you use lots of rancid live rock with decaying sponges and dying worms.  In that case, I might be concerned about sponges and worms releasing their defense chemicals as they decompose, and I might want to do a water change to get that stuff out.   But carbon would do that too.

[sen5241b]

In this hobby things change. Rules change. Once upon a time any phosphates were bad and now some are okay. But I am sticking with the rule NEVER USE TAP WATER. I tried it and algae grew and it was a massive pain to get rid of it. 

 

There are a handful of cities that have zero TDS tap water like Vancouver Canada a dyou use that after you get rid of the chlorine.

[Anemone]

I don't recommend a huge water change post-cycle unless you use lots of rancid live rock with decaying sponges and dying worms. In that case, I might be concerned about sponges and worms releasing their defense chemicals as they decompose, and I might want to do a water change to get that stuff out. But carbon would do that too.

I think this is the reason it's recommended, it's assumed that there would be rancid live rock critters. Or decaying shrimp pieces, if that was the approach.

 

I hope nobody minded the questions, these are just thought experiments. I like to know where the limits might be, and get a handle on what might go wrong if we try to break the rules.

[Origami]

I think this is the reason it's recommended, it's assumed that there would be rancid live rock critters. Or decaying shrimp pieces, if that was the approach.

 

I hope nobody minded the questions, these are just thought experiments. I like to know where the limits might be, and get a handle on what might go wrong if we try to break the rules.

Don't worry a bit about questions or thought exercises. They're welcome. As in life, people find success in many ways. Failure, too. We talk about and share both. It's all part of helping one another.

 

As for the large water change: If there are decaying pieces, you'll either have measurable ammonia or a well developed biological filter that's processing the ammonia from decay fast enough that it's immeasurable. If that's the case, then siphoning out and removing the decaying organics is probably reasonable. But a lot of that may be settled on the bottom if that's the case.

 

Remember that the water is alive, too. There are bacteria living in the water column. Not nearly as much as is on surfaces, but some are certainly there. A huge water change will remove these (probably not of any significance), dilute other pollutants, and possibly result in a large parameter change. In a new, largely uninhabited tank, that's probably not going to hurt anything.

 

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[Anemone]

Thanks everyone for chiming in and sharing your experiences.

 

A related idea, doesn't anyone know whether nannochloropsis cultures can grow in chlorinated water? That might help cut down on contamination issues.

[AlanM]

For what it's worth, most folks that culture phyto say that nanno doesn't provide very good nutritional value for the filter feeders in your tank even though it seems to be easy to culture.  The ones that people say are desired are isochrysis and tetraselmis.

[Anemone]

Is nannochloropsis viewed as more suited for fry, then? A fair amount of the articles I've seen are focused on that use. Seems to be because of the fatty acid profile, which might be less important for our filter feeders?

Citation:

http://www.advancedaquarist.com/2002/8/breeder