Fresh water composition - good or not?

[Anonymous]

Yeah, Brita won't work for fish tank, but there are some model that work by gravity, as in a pitcher.

So you can't ship him a RO/DI filter? :?

 

[Mihai]

Even if I ship it to him, he will probably have a hard time plumbing it.
To begin with, all pipes over there are metric . Then they are in the walls. Concrete walls.

I was unable to find a recipe for salt online. Do you know of any?
M.

 

[Anonymous]

For RO/DI, the only size you need to care about is the input, and Jaco/JohnGuest have adopter that let you work with metric. The drain can just open to a kitchen sink, but you can get adoptor for that. Some have a faucet adopter.

Anyway, most salt formulation is propriatory. There can be a few out there (check the alt.soc.aquaria.marine newsgroup archive), but you will have to search it yourself. Any inorganic chemist can come up with one. The trick is to make it cheap, and have the ingredient readily available. I can tell you that it won't be cheap if you want to do it right.

 

[Sponge_Bob]

Well, at least I learned 2 things here.

1. Don't move to USA.
2. Stop saying that TAP WATER is safe WITHOUT adding that you have to be in major cities in Canada.

There seems to be a major difference in the water quality you guys get in the states compared to what we get here, in Canada. So I must consider myself lucky to live in a city that has no Nitrates, no phosphate in the water. Only chlorine.

One thing that surprises me a lot is the fact that even the state of California seems to have problem with their water. It's rather puzzling because I've read on so many labels that product "X" that California says that it is considered dangerous and can cause cancer. It's rather sad for you guys because I know that RO/DI are not cheap, at least, not here and they take time to produce water and then you have to make up the minerals back.

I will try to locate a sand mix recipe on the web... I recall seeing one, once.

 

[Sponge_Bob]

Here ya go :

http://www.athiel.com/lib7/drj1.htm

HTH a bit.

Disclaimer: I did not ever use this method, nor did I read the entire recipe. So take it with a grain of salt! (pun intended) :wink:

 

[GSchiemer]

Even if I ship it to him, he will probably have a hard time plumbing it.
To begin with, all pipes over there are metric . Then they are in the walls. Concrete walls.

I was unable to find a recipe for salt online. Do you know of any?
M.

I have to ask: Where the heck does this person live? On the moon? AFAIK, commercial sea salt mixes are universally available now. And you're saying that he can't get a commercial sea salt mix but can get all the ingredients to make his own? Doesn't make sense. If he can receive packages, he can get sea salt mix and water filters. The "Tap Water Purifier" unit attaches to any faucet, even metric. And how is he going to get marine animals, live rock, a hydrometer, etc. if he can't even get sea salt mix. My suggestion is to find another hobby until he moves off the moon. Perhaps stamp collecting. Can he get stamps where he lives?

 

[Meloco14]

I think this is what people are referring to when they say the Tap Water Filter. http://www.marinedepot.com/aquarium_rev ... sp?CartId=
AFAIK it isn't great, and is not cost effective in the long run, as the filters need to be replaced fairly frequently. But since this is for a pico or nano you dont need much water anyway, and this is better than nothing. It is relatively small so you can probably ship it to him without too much expense. Having said that, since this is a pico or nano, maybe he can just go to the store and get distilled water?

 

[Anonymous]

Sounds like TWP/TWF won't work for him since the tap water has so much junk it in that only a few gallon will be processed.

 

[Mihai]

I have to ask: Where the heck does this person live? On the moon? AFAIK, commercial sea salt mixes are universally available now. And you're saying that he can't get a commercial sea salt mix but can get all the ingredients to make his own? Doesn't make sense. If he can receive packages, he can get sea salt mix and water filters. The "Tap Water Purifier" unit attaches to any faucet, even metric. And how is he going to get marine animals, live rock, a hydrometer, etc. if he can't even get sea salt mix. My suggestion is to find another hobby until he moves off the moon. Perhaps stamp collecting. Can he get stamps where he lives?

He's in Bucharest, Romania. And you bring up a very good point. It is certainly not the ideal place to have a reef tank. Not close to it. As far as I was able to find on the net there are no LFS there that have any marine stuff, hence, no salt, hydrometer, etc. Of course the easiest way would be to go for stamps, but he's not into stamps ;-).

Regarding critters, I may be able to send him a few from time to time when I go there/he comes here/other people come and go. He took with him enough equipment to setup a small pico and run it for a while (pump, lights, hydrometer, tests, salt, etc.), he got a bit of live sand, live rock a few zoanthids and a couple of mushrooms (my hardiest variety). The plan is for him to setup a 30-60 gal tank, and make his own LR (agrocrete). If everything is OK, I can send him a bunch of frags and populate the tank.

In the best of case, the end result will be quite far from a tank of the month, but I think that he will enjoy it and that it still a good opportunity for him to learn something. Eventually, the hobby will pick up there too (it slowly spread from western Europe eastward, but it's not quite there yet).

The key to his (arguably limited) success I believe is finding a reasonably good source of water and salt. On the positive side he's quite a DIY guy and very willing to learn new things - he's also OK at chemistry and good at freshwater tanks.

Regarding the ingredients for salt, I think that he may be able to find them as long as they have other uses as well (i.e., beyond making sea salt).

If the water he found turns out to have nitrates and phosphates, perhaps the best thing will be distilled water.

All the best,
Mihai