Does anyone use natural salt water?

skinz78 · Oct 2, 2011

I'm considering using NSW from the Puget Sound and I am wondering what everyone thinks of it? If you use it can you please post pic's of your tank and list the inhabitants as well as how long you have used it for? How do you collect it, and how much do you collect at once. I wonder how long it can be safely stored before it go's bad?

One thing is the water around here is on average about 54 degrees so I would have to bring it up to temp. I've also been told that the SG is usually around 1.021 so that would have to be raised as well.

I have quite a few clams and SPS's and I'm worried about the possibility of loosing them due to pollutants in the water.

It seems lame to me to be buying salt mix when I have salt water just 5 min away.

nicodim55 · Oct 2, 2011

Been using it for 20 years

macawmagic · Oct 2, 2011

I've been using natural sea water for a couple months now. It's much easier for me to do water changes because i'm pretty busy and it takes some time to mix up water. With it already being made I actually am doing water changes every weekend now. I bought a 500 gal vat for my garage and have a delivery company drop it off about once every 2 months. Cost me about $120 for them to deliver the water and do a water change. My specific gravity is about 1.027-1.028 so I have to add a little RO to bring that down.

Hope that helps! I know plenty of people down here that have used NSW for years. Most of our stores sell NSW.

fish&corals · Oct 2, 2011

i have used it too .. we get it here at the docks in cocoa beach or you can drive down to ft pierce they get it out of the gulf stream . but since the big oil spill they have pretty much stopped harvesting from there ... for 5 gallons of NSW you add 1 gallon of RO/DI brings the salt level down to 1.025

skinz78 · Oct 2, 2011

Have you ever seen any negatives from using it?

WrasseSandwich · Oct 2, 2011

Ive used it for the past year and a half, I get it from a LFS, they filter it and correct the salinity

iprayforwaves · Oct 3, 2011

fish&corals said:
i have used it too .. we get it here at the docks in cocoa beach or you can drive down to ft pierce they get it out of the gulf stream . but since the big oil spill they have pretty much stopped harvesting from there ... for 5 gallons of NSW you add 1 gallon of RO/DI brings the salt level down to 1.025

I'm like 20 minutes from Cocoa and never thought of using it. Guess I'm a bit paranoid about the big boats in the Cape and pollutants.

MadReefer1 · Oct 3, 2011

I have been using it for awhile now and love it wont ever mix salt again i dont think. I dont know about getting it form dcoks and what not when the stink line runs a few miles off shore and inshore water is just full of all kinds of crap down here.

el richie · Oct 3, 2011

I've used it before but stopped. Didn't feel like driving to scrips peer to get it. The water from their is the same that they use for birch aquarium here in San Diego so it's pretty well filtered

KJAG · Oct 3, 2011

iprayforwaves said:
I'm like 20 minutes from Cocoa and never thought of using it. Guess I'm a bit paranoid about the big boats in the Cape and pollutants.

My corals have never been so stoked since i started using NSW.supposedly its supposed to be taken offshore, then filtered through a multi step process. my LFS gets it from a boater who takes care of the filtering. Also, havent had to dose as much Mg-the NSW comes in at around 1500 already. Pretty much just use two part.

octoberfest · Oct 3, 2011

As far as pollutants go it can't be any worse than the water around some of these third world countries where I wild caught critters come from.

GR808 · Oct 3, 2011

Chris, I've been using NSW for about 6+ months now and love it. I keep it in 2 55g drums and it'll last me about 2-2.5 months. I have no problem with keeping it as far as I know but I do dose ca/alk once a week about and mag once a month just to maintain ideal levels. From what I've learned in the past is that it is ideal to let water sit for some time to kill the bacteria in it.. or is that just an old wifes tale... something for mythbusters. The salinity of my NSW is about 1.027 so I bring it down to about 1.026. I've heard good and bad of using NSW but hey, if it works why not. But using NSW saves a ton of $$$ in which you could be using for frags??? or in your case, clams..
Good luck buddy

skinz78 · Oct 3, 2011

GR808 said:
Chris, I've been using NSW for about 6+ months now and love it. I keep it in 2 55g drums and it'll last me about 2-2.5 months. I have no problem with keeping it as far as I know but I do dose ca/alk once a week about and mag once a month just to maintain ideal levels. From what I've learned in the past is that it is ideal to let water sit for some time to kill the bacteria in it.. or is that just an old wifes tale... something for mythbusters. The salinity of my NSW is about 1.027 so I bring it down to about 1.026. I've heard good and bad of using NSW but hey, if it works why not. But using NSW saves a ton of $$$ in which you could be using for frags??? or in your case, clams..
Good luck buddy

Ha ha I like how you think!

My only thing is that I don't have a way to get it from offshore, but there is area's that I can get to that there is no houses or businesses, I mean at least a mile away from civilization.

Raggamuffin · Oct 3, 2011

When I worked at the Wesport Aquarium out in WA. we used water straight from the boat basin for those tanks which I would NOT reccomend. It kept the fish happy but we sucked up a TON of really bad stuff at times that wiped out everything more than a few times. If I remember right you live up in sparkly vampire land where you see a lot less boat traffic. The best way to collect that I have found is either weight a hose down and take it as far out as you can, use a float on the end to hold the end of the hose 3 or 4 feet off the bottom. This was you are not sucking mud and not sucking oil and other pollutants from the surface. Run the water through a 1 micron sock to keep most the nasties out and then through a finer sock if you can find one! Then I would let it sit for a few days and crack the heat up to 80+ which SHOULD wipe out all the cold water critters that made it. I would also add a skimmer while doing that to help get the dead nasties out. Should be good to go after that though.