Does Edmonton water have phosphates?
 

Hey guys i picked up an API reef master test kit a few days ago but i think im not getting the right readings as these are known not to be the greatest. I tested my tank for phosphates a few days ago when i got the kit and it read 0.25 so i got worried and tested the tap water and i also got 0.25 so i figured i was getting them from the tap water. Today i ran another test and got 0.00 for the tank and 0.25 for tap.
I also went out and got some spring water and drinking water to test and the spring came up as 0.25 and the drinking at 0.00

Now i was wondering if city water does really contain those phosphates or is my test junk.

I know i should be using ro/di water, im just in the process of looking into a system.

also my aquarium has these foam bubbles up at the to corners, some days its more than others. Any idea what its about?

Thanks in advance!

ok so i did a quick test for you , phosphate of tap water was 0.25 and the total desolved solids was a whopping 175 ppm ( in abbotsford , bc it was 12ppm) . So there is phosphate in the water here as well as alot of other crap . I used straight tap water when i re setup my tank at the begining of june and had a bad hair algea outbreak , took me a bunch of ro/di water changes to get it under control. I love my ro/di unit , and i tapped into the line thats before the di resin to make drinking water and im so glad i did , i dont know how people here can drink this stuff!

Thank you so much. How bad is this amount of phosphates for corals? i have lps and 1 sps. I understand it should be 0 but should i be in panic mode to fix this? Everything in the tank seems fine at the moment.

Not all the dissolved solids can be called crap, some of it is calcium and other dissolved minerals.....

iceman no need to panic, just run some GFO (phosphate remover) in a media reactor. Just about every food we add to our tank contains some phosphates......

thanks marie :biggrin:

+1 even with ro id still run gfo:)

i find if i have an ammount of phosphate i can detect .25 or higher i get algea issues like bryopsis. but the corals dont mind .Sps are the most sensative to phosphate and tend to brown out with higher nutrients.