First fowler tank

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Monster tamer

Aquarium Advice Apprentice
Joined
Feb 18, 2013
Messages
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Hey guys I'm in the process of getting fish tank. I already have a planted tank and community tank freshwater. I was thinking a 75gal fowler tank would be the next step. Any tips or tricks I should be aware of and do I need 100% Di water or can sub it for some Dechlorinated water?
 
Even though you plan on a FOWLR, you may at some later time decide to put a few corals in there, or at the very least you're going to have some CUC (clean-up crew) like snails & crabs. For this reason, I'd advise on still using RODI water instead of de-chlor tap water..... there can be some pretty nasty things in your water that your FW fish can put up with, but corals and SW inverts cannot, namely heavy metals like copper.
Even if you start with tap and then switch over to RODI, you have still introduced these metals & chemicals into the system, and once there, they tend to accumulate in the rock & substrate. Almost all corals, and many inverts, are extremely intolerant of even trace amounts of copper, which you do have in your water from the pipes.
 
So with that said would you say that there is no point in switching to RODI after using treated tap? I have been using treated tap for several months now and my fish and stars seem to be doing fine. I was fortunate enough to come across a 4 stage RODI system for $50. I know it wasn't much but did I waste my money buying this RODI and replacing the prefilters?
 
Switching to RODI is definitely better than sticking with tap!!! I was referring to the OP getting started with a new system, and if any problems can be prevented now, it's well worth it.
 
Fish can be, depending on what is in your local tap water. A lot of the bad stuff is not harmful to humans, but we don't live in and breath the water. If given the choice, we would probably want pure air to breath, not polluted, right? A lot of these things can build up over time, so it is not always a quick, observable thing.

If you can't do RODI, then I would at least get water from one of those big machines outside of a lot of stores. Most have some kind of carbon and UV filtering plus RO and/or DI. It usually runs about 25 cents per gallon. It's not perfect, but for FOWLR, its a fairly cheap alternative to tap water.
 
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