Reef tank on tap water?

[ImACoolguy]

I know what you are thinking, "of course not...."

But listen to this.... Long story short my LFS tested my water(returned a dead fish) and low and behold my water sample held 0 GH AND 0.8KH...

Very confused I came home and ran the test myself on my tap water multiple times, every single time- Zero.

My water is basically as soft as physically possible. We have city water then it goes through a couple house filters.

Of course my water also has no traces of ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate, could it be possible, to run a healthy reef on this tap water?

I just took down my reef a few weeks ago and WISH I had known about this sooner.


Caleb

 

[PB_Smith]

I know what you are thinking, "of course not...."

But listen to this.... Long story short my LFS tested my water(returned a dead fish) and low and behold my water sample held 0 GH AND 0.8KH...

Very confused I came home and ran the test myself on my tap water multiple times, every single time- Zero.

My water is basically as soft as physically possible. We have city water then it goes through a couple house filters.

Of course my water also has no traces of ammonia, nitrite, or nitrate, could it be possible, to run a healthy reef on this tap water?

I just took down my reef a few weeks ago and WISH I had known about this sooner.


Caleb

yes, you should. in theory everything should be getting added back with the salt mix.
Sniper says he uses distilled water which is going to be about the same, neutral ph and little or no TDS, and he has reported no problems.

Have you tested the tap water before it goes through the house filters?

 

[ImACoolguy]

yes, you should. in theory everything should be getting added back with the salt mix.
Sniper says he uses distilled water which is going to be about the same, neutral ph and little or no TDS, and he has reported no problems.

Have you tested the tap water before it goes through the house filters?

Wow thanks PB, I have not yet as I just found out about this yesterday.

I only have the API liquid GH/KH test but after 4 tests between LFS and home it's given the same result every time.


Caleb

 

[bribo12]

My main issue with tap water is the things you cannot test for. You could be fine for so many years and then all of a sudden the tap changes or something builds up that you can't test for.

People do run reefs on tap. I'd just be wary of going this route that there could be long term consequences.


Sent from my iPhone using Aquarium Advice

 

[Sniperhank]

It isn't the things we test for that is what the scary is in tap water, it is the things that we can't test for...fluoride, heavy metals...who knows. Not a direction that I would ever go.
Distilled is as low as one should go for a reef tank IMO, and even then it can be done much better in terms of managing things. Still algae issues and miss my ro/di.

 

[ImACoolguy]

Ahh well I found it oddly perplexing.

I'll stick to RO/DI in the future.


Caleb