Do you Use RODI water?

[hillegom]

I think you should check your meter. I heard Calgary water was around 200?

[jhj0112]

I'm following this thread closely.. My tap water TDS is from 8-14ppm..
I know this has been discussed many times here in GVRD..

some says it makes difference in coral growth.. some says they are fine without one..

I have not used it yet. I can't justify spending money to take out 14ppm....

[CM125]

Originally Posted by hillegom

I think you should check your meter. I heard Calgary water was around 200?

Hopefully someone else from Calgary chimes in, but I have heard Calgary is one of the best water sources in the country.

[Aquattro]

Originally Posted by CM125

Hopefully someone else from Calgary chimes in, but I have heard Calgary is one of the best water sources in the country.

It's good water, but lots of minerals. Most people there report really high TDS.

However, the point of RO is consistency and insurance. There's always the possibility of something getting into the water mains and wiping out your collection of corals. Until then, you're probably fine running tap water. Mostly. Lots do without tank implosions. For me, it's worth the extra peace of mind.

[canadianbudz604]

I've always used ro water at the least but the one time I used tap they were fixing plumbing around my neighbourhood and I didn't know, so it crashed my tank and I lost slot of very nice corals. Not worth chancing in my opinion. However In the past 3 weeks my tapwater is testing at 3ppm so it's pretty damn clean.

[Myka]

I'm assuming this is in relation to reef tanks? I use tap water in most fish only systems and it works just fine. I've used RO/DI for the last 15 years or so.

[CM125]

Yes full reef tank, although good to know about fish only.

[reefwithareefer]

My TDS runs about 8 to 10 so, I use it for my top off only.

For my 55 gal salt mix, I add Prime or Amquel to get rid of the chloramine. BRS did a study and it found that almost all brands of carbon did pretty much nothing to take out the chloramine, which can be deadly to the livestock.

[Trigger Man]

Calgary does have some of the best water in North America, I have a close friend that used to be in charge of monitoring water quality in Canada and the US for a major company a bit back. I always used RO water in my main display tank, and my office tank that got filtered water had more algae problems.
Thinking back the reason I got started on it really came down to others who had nice setups making a good point, do I want to risk it and then have to battle the possibility of algae and other problems, or try to nip it in the butt before it appeared.
On my current tank I have moved to a RODI unit, and there are many great ones on ebay at a reasonable price now a days. I am going on over 600 g through my current one and it is still showing 0 for tds after running it for a bit (it now shows 1 for Tds for the first bit whenever I start making water), as well as 0 for copper, chlorine.

[CM125]

It seems the results are quite in favour of using it, although I wish more local people would chime in.