Should i Drain and refill with RO

[Vaportrail31]

Hello All,

I recently set up a 90gl added water and salt using TAP water.

I'm impatient at best and did not utilize the industrial RO/DI available to me at work.

What are your opinions on draining refilling and staring over.

My sand came in today and I dont want to add it if your opinions are the same as that of the very helpful <crissy> sorry if I mis-spieled :roll:

Thanks everyone,

b.t.w. I have 120lbs sand 80 of it dry aragamax and 40 wet oolitic any opinions there also. I thought that the finer grain "Bahamian overpriced water dirt" would look better but my lfs says it will settle DOWN to the BOTTOM 8O

I dunno wheres the betta forum my head hurts :wink:

 

[Anonymous]

Depends on what you going to keep, and how bad is your tap water, you may or may not need to drain and refill. For FO and with relatively clean tap water, you should be fine. However, if you water is hard, and full of nitrate, and you want to keep coral, then you may need to waste the salt, and drain it.

To cure live rock, the existing water maybe fine, however.

 

[Anonymous]

I would think to cycle the tank it should be okay, but use the RO/DI for all topoffs and future water changes. As far as the smaller grain sands, yeah the really fine stuff settles and can compact into a useless mass.

 

[Vaportrail31]

Well,

The tap water here is crazy hard 18DKH. I am getting mixed reviews on the water change. I hear that my tap water could cause algea issues a year from now. If this holds true wouldn't I be pulluting the astrnomically priced sand?

Also i bought an eheim 2227 (wet/dry). it is basically a bubble maker it sprays 70% bubbles i've primed and re-primced if i had to to do agian i suppose i would go the sump/Good Skimmer route I was concerned about excess noise.

Thanks for the help....

Da' Vape

 

[Anonymous]

Well, hardness isn't a bad thing-quite the opposite really. It's the phosphates/nitrates etc that may be in the tap water that people complain about. If you are worried, test a sample of your tap water .

The issue with tap water is that long term use of tap water with say phosphates in it (when I lived in a rural farming area by water was chock full of that due to fertilizer run off from the corn fields) will lead to those substances building up in the tank, fueling algae growth, etc.

You will by no means pollute your tank beyond recognition by using tap water for your initial fill and R/O for subsequent water changes.

As far as the Eheim, I've never used one so I can't offer help one way or the other.