Step 1: Water...

[JenniLee]

Okay, I am so confused. I just got an Aquapod 24 today and want to get it up and moving. I have the live sand and a nice bit of live rock. I have Instant Ocean salt and have been told conflicting things: I can use tapwater if I treat it with PRIME or Bio-Coat or go buy 25 gallons of deionized water at the grocery store. I am super paranoid about screwing things up at the start, so any advice would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance for any help you can offer

 

[House of Laughter]

I wold go with option # 2 and get more than 25 - it evaporates quicker than you think.

Also, consider an RO/DI unit for the long run.

Hope that helps and good luck/welcome to MR

House

 

[JenniLee]

Thanks for the advise House. I want to start off on the right foot.

 

[noodleman]

also welcome to MR!:birthday: Sacramento is pretty far away:biggrin:

 

[JenniLee]

Yea, figured I'd put my feelers out all over to get as much info as I could. I'm really excited to see what everyone is doing in their tanks and look forward to learning from those of you who are kind enough to help a Cali girl with her first project :wink1: .

 

[digitalreefer]

DON'T USE TAP WATER
DON'T USE TAP WATER
DON'T USE TAP WATER

No one told me this when I started (I hadn't found MR yet) and I've never gotten my algae and cyano problems under control. If you have any question on why tap water is so bad, test your tap water for phosphates and watch the test go purple! House is right about both the evap and the RO/DI, but I would say go with the RO unit now if you can. It'll save you a few walks from the car with 25 gallons of water and at $1 / gallon you've spent 25% of the price on an eBay RO unit.

 

[JenniLee]

Thanks guys. Looks like I will learn my first bit of patience tonight and wait until tomorrow to get started on my water. What are your thoughts on buying ocean water? There's a shop here that sells it for about 50 cents/gal.

 

[digitalreefer]

What are your thoughts on buying ocean water?

If it's purified it's probably ok, but you may want to test it before adding it to the tank. Also, you'll need the RO/DI anyway since you don't top off with saltwater.

Probably best to just mix salt mix with RO/DI overall... you know what you get.

 

[DonCisco]

Welcome to MR JenniLee. I second and third and fourth the admonition of NOT using tap water. I have a 12G aquapod and I have used pre-made water. I think that you can get Catalina water at pretty reasonable prices. Make sure that the ocean water is filtered to eliminate phosphates, nitrates, etc. And if you can get it for 50 cent/gal... go for it, and get like 5 or 10 gallons extra, for future water changes. But you will still need to get RO water to top off your tank. Evaporation will lower your water level on a daily basis, so you will need water to maintain a normal level. The top off water has to be fresh water. Why fresh water (RO)? because the heat of the lamps, etc will evaporate the water only, the salt will remain in the water, but at a higher concentration, so by adding the fresh water, you will maintain the proper Specific Gravity of the saltwater. Best of luck

 

[bad coffee]

If it's clean natural sea water, it's really good for your tank.

If they're selling made up salt water for $.50 that's pretty cheap. How much a gallon is DI water from the grocery store, and how much is salt? which is cheaper?

B

 

[JenniLee]

Thanks for the great advice everyone. Once I get the tank up and running I'll post pics. I'll keep reading other posts on the forum to get more info and try not to ask too may dumb questions. Thanks for the jumpstart and I'll catch you guys later!

 

[jhale]

welcome to the board,

if the tanks not set up where and how are you keeping the live sand and live rock?

reefers on the west coast are lucky, you get to use natural seawater, that would be the fastest way to get started quickly. though I would test it for phosphates as mentioned already.

 

[cooksalot]

Okay, I am so confused. I just got an Aquapod 24 today and want to get it up and moving. I have the live sand and a nice bit of live rock. I have Instant Ocean salt and have been told conflicting things: I can use tapwater if I treat it.

hi and welcome i just set up my 24G AquaPod, so we'll be about a week apart in caring for our tanks. i was also told by my lfs i could use tap and a buffer, but after reading everyone's advice here, i ran to the store and bought distilled instead. if you already have your LR though, how are you keeping that? it can't get dried out. here's my very new advice (because i already had a set up problem)...buy your water, mix your salt and let it run for a day. then test your specific gravity and have your lfs double check it (if you are using a hydrometer) before you put in anything. i had a very faulty hydrometer and had i not double checked it with my lfs before putting in my LR i'd have wound up with nothing but base rock.

 

[scarf_ace1981]

i know a great deal of nanoreefers(nano-reef.com) use catalina saltwater. it believe they come in 5g buckets and cost about $10 each(maybe less).

best of luck LA has nice stuff. keep us posted. we'd love to see pics once the tank is filled.

jon-

 

[reefman]

Hi jenni, welcome to MR. :biggrin:

 

[DEEPWATER]

HI jenni

welcome to MR !!!!
you have some good advise from the pl here ,,never use tap water in your system ,not even in an emergency !!!! go slow ,ask as many question as you like dumb or not --we all started from the begining so no question is a dumb question

good luck
Ronen

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

Welcome to MR.

 

[JenniLee]

Hi all. Thanks for all the good advice. I went the distilled water route today rather than the ocean water and added the instant ocean salt. All is well so far. The live sand I got came wet in a 20lb bag. They gave us the live rock in a box with water from the tank it came out of. We have some really great stores here (and our share of not so great ones). The specific gravity is at 1.022 right now. I'll try to post some pics soon. Thanks for the help. Hopefully I'm on the right track. I'll keep you all posted.

 

[Tonyscoots84]

why is the salinity so low :scratch:... 1.024-1.026 is ideal :biggrin:

 

[JenniLee]

Can anyone tell me what the ideal parameters would be for my water? I see lots of posts with the parameters of folks having issues but I want to have an idea of where it should be so I can compare mine. I don't have a reading yet, but I have a Red Sea Marine Lab kit. Appreciate the help.