SPS and tap water?

[The Codfather]

Do you guys remember John's (aka lobsterboy)tank? He used water right out of the fawcet and his sps were always top notch. So, it can be done.

[dino]

I think its to general of a statement because we all have different parameters in our tap water and it does vary from time to time. I think consistency is the key that's why ro is preferred. my tds is 65 out of the tap

[Buzz]

10 PPM and 50PPM !!

Our town has a 14 million dollar upgrade to the water plant completed this spring and my tap water runs anywhere from 300PPM to 450PPM.

[sphelps]

Personally I can't imagine running an RO system on a 10ppm water source. Sounds pretty absurd really and a terrible waste of water even though yes you could recover and reuse the waste water elsewhere but why go through that trouble. Around these parts we use prefilters and RO to bring are source 300+ppm water down to maybe 10-20ppm. Some go further and use DI to bring it closer to zero.

If I had a water source that good I would just use a sediment filter and a carbon block to deal with chlorine and any potential changes in sediments that can sometimes occur throughout the year but that would certainly be as far as I would take it. IMO using a better safe than sorry argument here is just a little too far on the overkill scale and tipping more into the waste of time and money side of things.

[purplepolypeater]

I used tap water for over 5 years with no ill effects and great looking corals but in this hobby stability is #1 so if an ro filter and regular testing can prevent an issue rather cheaply is it really worth the risk. You might not know if the city flushes the lines and things change. At minimum I would test the water every time you use it.

[Ryanerickson]

Originally Posted by sphelps

Personally I can't imagine running an RO system on a 10ppm water source. Sounds pretty absurd really and a terrible waste of water even though yes you could recover and reuse the waste water elsewhere but why go through that trouble. Around these parts we use prefilters and RO to bring are source 300+ppm water down to maybe 10-20ppm. Some go further and use DI to bring it closer to zero.

If I had a water source that good I would just use a sediment filter and a carbon block to deal with chlorine and any potential changes in sediments that can sometimes occur throughout the year but that would certainly be as far as I would take it. IMO using a better safe than sorry argument here is just a little too far on the overkill scale and tipping more into the waste of time and money side of things.

Guess me and every other reefer around theses parts got it wrong and we are all just crazy absurb for running ro in lower mainland. My goal when making new water is to start from zero I want the best water possible for my livestock.

[sphelps]

Originally Posted by Ryanerickson

Guess me and every other reefer around theses parts got it wrong and we are all just crazy absurb for running ro in lower mainland. My goal when making new water is to start from zero I want the best water possible for my livestock.

IMO yes. No different than saying all us folks around here are crazy absurb for only using one RO membrane, we should be using two or more inline to achieve the same results as you folks down there.

[Potatohead]

My tap water tests at 14 TDS and I still use an RODI unit, for a measly $130 or whatever it was I want to eliminate as many potential issues as possible. The filters and DI last forever... lol.