Water question

[alexselus]

Hello!

I have a question regarding water. Would water filtered with a PUR or Brita water filter be acceptable?

I'm a college student living in an apartment, and installing my own RO/DI filter isn't allowed by my lease. I have a 30 gallon tank, so I could just get water from Wal-mart, but I feel that it's impractical with also setting up a 10 gallon quarantine tank, water changes, and daily top-offs.

If the RO water from Wal-mart is the best solution for this I can just deal with it, but it would be a lot more convenient if I could use filtered tap water.

(also, i would go to my LFS, but the one in my town (Fort Collins) recently went out of business. I'm not sure if PetSmart or Pet Co would have RO/DI water, and the other nearest fish store is roughly an hour away (Greeley).

Any help would be wonderful!

 

[ccCapt]

It depends on how good the tap water is to being with. Here is Fort Collins water quality report. http://www.fcgov.com/utilities/pdf/dwqr.pdf

Here's a good article on using tap water in reef systems.
Tap Water in Reef Aquaria

 

[thincat]

Pur or Brita could get to be expensive. You could get the RO/DI unit and not attach it to any walls and just hook it up to a faucet and run it that way. Just put the unit in a plastic container as to not spill any water.

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

A Brita filter at my house knocks the TDS (total dissolved solids) levels in half... from about 80 ppm at the tap to around 40 ppm out of the Brita. Who knows what is in that 40ppm.

If you want "pure", you're not going to get it with a Brita/Pur.

 

[melosu58]

I have to agree with the others that it wont get it all. Is this for a reef tank or a FOWLR tank? You would be OK as long as you did not have corals. I work for a water municipality so I know that phosphates and nitrates and silicates to name a few are added to tap water. Good for human consumption but not for Sw reefs.

 

[alexselus]

It's for a FOWLR set up that I hope to add coral to eventually.

Thanks for the input guys, I appreciate it.

 

[SHARPiE]

I have a FOWLR setup and I thought tap water would do the trick (I looked into my area's water quality and it was actually quite good).

However, within a few weeks of the tank being stocked, diatoms started to appear. I have a hooded tank with 3 Fluro Lights, and have had to cut the lighting down to 4 hours a day, halved feeding (and STILL I am fighting the diatoms) My snails just can't cope.

So I bought this off ebay: Countertop 5 stage Reverse Osmosis Aquarium/Fish Tank. For $105 AUD. (around $80 USD) And have been slowly changing the tap water out. If I had my time over, I would have used RO/DI water from day 1.

It isn't a permenant RO/DI machine - it is portable and all I have to do is screw off the airater from a tap, and screw on the RO/DI machine. (This may be acceptable on your lease).

 

[Kurt_Nelson]

An RO/DI system is a great addition, but even using RO/DI water I think you still would've seen the diatom bloom. The tap water didn't help, but regardless of the water used it just seems like a rite of passage for most saltwater tanks.