Some American reefers use water truck services to fill their reefs... I've heard of people having the hose lifted up through their apartment window for water changes.

When I was in L.A. some 4 of 5 years ago and would visit the LFS's I noticed that a lot of them would have these huge water holding tanks filled with something they called "Catalina water." Which I assumed to be seawater from Catalina Island or nearby.

Only thing is I don't think it any harder to keep 30g onhand of Catalina than it would be keeping synthetic onhand, but the nice thing about synthetic is I can make up as much as I want (as long as I have the salt onhand). Fill up my 30g rubbermaid with water, mix in my salt, and away we go... and I hopefully don't have to worry if I'm adding sewage or motor oil or whatever when I use it.

yes but this water has been steralized and filtered. there was a big thread on it on RC.

Steve

I read in one of the magazines about using seawater, an aquarium used sea water and would basically pump the NSW into an old swimming pool, chlorinate it for 24 hours then de chlorinate it and then filter it. Synthetic looks pretty good to me.

Doug

Is the water from the taps on the piers filtered as well?