Thanks for the advice. Does the shrimp actually work? The rock I bought is dry and I am planning to get "live" sand sold at the reef store which is bagged, with that in mind, if I mixed my own water using dry salt, where are the nitrifying bacteria going to come from? I don't think there would be any in the dried salt or the dried rock, and is there enough in the sand to get the system running quickly? Also, when I think logically, I believe there would be nitrifying bacteria in water obtained from an established tank which would then "seed" my rock as well as contribute to setting up the sands aerobic and anaerobic ecosystems. In addition, I have a couple more reasons I'm posting for water, 1. After searching for local distilled or RO/DI water, the most reasonable place to buy from is the reef store. At the reef store, it's $1.25/gallon for RO/DI water, $1.75/gallon for premixed salt water, or $2/gallon for their established water. With that in mind I would be able to save some money if someone was generous and gave me their water that they would have thrown out after their water change anyway. 2. I have just bought a tank, light, protein skimmer, 46 lbs of dry, live rock and I still need to buy the sand bed and a powerhead to get the tank running; the costs have added up quickly and this seems to be a way to save a little cash to buy some fish and corals later on.
If anyone lives within a few miles of Hauppauge NY (near smithtown and ronkonkoma on Long Island) and are doing a water change in the next few days and has some water I could have, I would greatly appreciate it. Thanks for reading my thread.
Dave
