Water top offs?

[Habitat]

Brother left me his tank 2 weeks ago everything is cool but H20 is low/ i've done some reading but not sure.
Should I be using saltwater or RO water for top offs?

20 gal
prizm skimmer
hot magnum canister
96 watt coralife quad
2 pwr heads
100 watt digital heater
28 lbs LR
19 lbs LS
2 azure damsels
feather duster (FL)
random hermits
cleaner shrimp

thanks -

[jackdp]

You replace any evaporated water with RO water. Use saltwater for water changes. Just keep an eye on the salinity, you don't want to change salinity too quickly.
It looks like you inherited a pretty good reef setup. Only suggestion from looking at your list is the canister filter. With 28lbs LR you would do good to only run carbon in the filter, you may already be doing this? Otherwise, it sounds like my tank

[fishfreek]

This is a little rule that I like to give folks.

Add Freshwater (treated tap or RO) when replacing water that has evaporated and use Saltwater when replacing water that you have removed from the system.

So for example if you do a water change then you would add saltwater because you physically took water out of the system. Between water changes you would add freshwater because of evaporation. This is because the salt and other trace minerals do not evaporate with the water but insetead are left behind.

[Razoreqx]

I keep two rubbermaids.. One with 40 Gals of Saltwater (covered) and one 20g of RO/DI water (covered)
In a top off I use RO water which has been airiated for 24 hours. I run an open top open system so I replace about 1 1/2 to 2 gals per day of water.

When doing water changes you'll use premixed Salt water to replace the NaCl you removed from the change.. I make sure this has been running with powerhead and O2 for 48 hours before I use. Make sure you check the salinaty before you change out your tank water.

[Sati]

I'm SW stupid, so sorry if this is a dumb question but why do you aerate the water before adding it to the tank? The the powerheads and filter in the tank are not enough?

[Anemoneman]

When doing water changes you'll use premixed Salt water to replace the NaCl you removed from the change

You don't really mean sodium chloride, right? Just using NaCl as a euphemism for prepared ocean salt mix?

[Brad]

...Yes, I'm sure he didn't mean NaCl

You could modify his sentence as "When doing water changes you'll use premixed Salt water to replace the aquarium tank water you removed from the change[/b]

[Razoreqx]

Originally Posted by Brad

...Yes, I'm sure he didn't mean NaCl

You could modify his sentence as "When doing water changes you'll use premixed Salt water to replace the aquarium tank water you removed from the change[/b]

Thanks and yes thats what I ment. I was not paying attention as I typed... I need to drink less..