Natural Sea Water

[Charley]

Hello all.....new to the hobby and love this site! I live on Long Island, near the ocean. Can you use natural sea water? Does it have to be filtered?

Charley

 

[ducati335i]

I know several people that get "fresh" sw by going out into the ocean a little then filling up..
I haven't been brave enough to try.. I fear parasites or unwanted bacteria.. But I think a lot of aquariums do this..

 

[tosiek]

Theres a few people that do it. There are precautions you should know about like parasites, bacteria, contaminates, ect. Plus, most of the waters around new york are kind of dirty so if you want "clean" saltwater the best way to do it is RO + salt mix. Your pretty much throwing dirty bay water into your tank unless your pulling water from the tip of long island. High nitrates, Po4, ect can come from grabbing water off the brooklyn pier ontop of oil and fuel residue and other unwanted stuff. If your running a dirty softie tank where dirty water is a plus this might not matter, but if you want SPS and color then I would do RO + salt mix. Theres probably a bunch of other things that can be an issue that escape me that someone will chime in on.

 

[Shawn138]

I have been doing natural sea water,for water change no filter & for top off filtered for storage but all LI Sound water.
The tank loves it & I don't pay a penny or use any chemicals at all just sea water.

 

[jackson6745]

I have used water from here.....offshore 100 miles though. Far out you hit the cobalt blue water of the gulf stream. I haven't done it in a while but I did see a polyp response from the corals. You can see all kinds of little "bugs" swimming in the collected water bottles. Inshore water has lots of algae growth. I would certainly run carbon + phosphate media to filter inshore water before using in my tank.

 

[jackson6745]

Shawn what other corals do you have? Zoos and palys are very hardy. Success with a more delicate coral would be better proof.

 

[Shawn138]

All of my corals are hardy corals majority soft a few SPS