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My StuffCurrent articles in progressA mated pair of Cleaner Shrimp. Over heated Zoa's during shipping Water Quality for the salt aquarium Reef Links
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Water Quality for the salt aquariumArticle added: 07-25-2008
Water quality is always a concern for the saltwater aquarist. Purity is of the essence especially for the Reef Aquarist, since most reef aquarists must have pristine water for the inhabitants of the reef tank. Even if you are about to enter the saltwater hobby with only the notion of having a fish-only tank in your living room, it is a good idea to understand water and ask yourself, "Where will the water come from for the tank?". It is a necessity to change out a percentage of the water in the saltwater tank every week to keep the pollutants down, but you must have a reliable source for the water you are going to use. There is no room for error when it comes to water quality and this one simple fact has had many beginning aquarist scratching their head in wonder, as they look at their tank full of dead animals. If you are going to do this hobby right, you have to have the tools to do the job and not have to worry about the water that is being put into the tank. A decent Ro/Di (reverse osmosis/deionization) unit will be the tool you will want to get. However, you could go to your local fish store and purchase Ro/Di water and lug it all home, week after week, but after a while, that will get old fast! Having an Ro/Di unit in your house will help save your back as well as all the gas money and time you spend going to pick it up. Ro/Di water from a local fish store will cost you about $.80 per gallon and about $1.20 a gallon if it is salted. After spending $20, $30 or more dollars for water every week, you will soon realize that your own Ro/Di unit will save you a lot of money in the long run. A decent Ro/Di unit will run you about $145.00 for a starter unit and can go higher mostly depending on how much water you need to produce and how fast you need to produce it. A unit that will purify 75-100 gallons a day, generally suits most hobbyists. Is an Ro/Di unit really necessary? Well, there is a way to find out! Test your tap water. The main concern with using tap water is the contaminants in the water and of those, chlorine is the biggest and most deadly. There are other contaminates in water straight from the tap that will cause havoc on a saltwater tank as well. Nitrates, fluorides, ammonia and heavy metals, just to mention a few, can cause huge problems in a saltwater tank. You can use a simple pool test kit which costs about $5.00 at home depot to test for chlorine. If you have chlorine, you can better believe there will be other contaminants in your source tap water. A TDS (Total Dissolved Solids) meter is also a good tool to have around the house. A TDS meter will give you a reading of total dissolved solids in PPM (Parts Per Million). A decent Ro/Di unit will filter out these contaminants to 0ppm. Where I live, here in Florida, the water right out of the tap is 350ppm. The legal limit, by the way, is 400ppm. That's dirty water! In the town I moved here from was 300ppm; plenty of contaminants there too! I recently check my tap water again and it was at 315ppm.
The Chlorine levels of the tap water are detected at 3.0 with a Ph reading of 7.6.
After the water had passed through my Ro/Di unit the TDS metered out at zero. Chlorine is zero and the Ph remained at 7.6.
Big difference in water quality and I am sure the water will be safe to use in my saltwater tank. The Ro/Di unit I now use and the
TDS meter is from Air, Water and Ice. This is their Typhoon Reef keeping Ro/Di, 5 stage unit with ASOV (automatic shut off valve).
I had them put in a water pressure meter so I could make sure I had enough pressure for the unit to run properly.
The Ro membrane sits on top of the unit.
The unit came with all the tools needed to install and maintain the unit.
There are other Ro/Di units on the market. I built my first one about 12 years ago and it did a fine job till the housings started to crack, but now the prices of these units has fallen so much, it is cheaper to buy one ready built. I don't work for Air, Water and Ice and I am not trying to push their products, but the Typhoon is the one I went with and I have been very happy with it's performance. Whatever type of Ro/Di unit you decide to get, just do some research and make sure you get one that will do what you want it to do! |
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