How to make salt water at home.

[Knight_Solaire01]

Hello one and all. I wasn't sure if this belonged here or in the new to reef forum. I am just wondering what is the safest way to mix a gallon of my own salt water from home with tap water and instant ocean sea salt. I know the instructions seem simple enough, but I hear people telling me simply mixing with tap is not good or not good enough. I don't have the set up right now to make salt water from home, and I don't want to wait until my off days to go top off some more from my LFS. Any advice?

 

[Fezbearer]

If you have a big grocery store near you, you should be able to buy RODI water from them.

 

[Easy Reefing]

I buy enough rodi water from my lfs to last me about a week , which is only 13 gallons . To mix the instant ocean sea salt and the rodi water , I have a 5 gallon homedepot bucket with a heater and a small pump to keep the water circulating. I let the water sit for a couple hours or until the water in the bucket matches my temp in my tank .

 

[Knight_Solaire01]

I buy enough rodi water from my lfs to last me about a week , which is only 13 gallons . To mix the instant ocean sea salt and the rodi water , I have a 5 gallon homedepot bucket with a heater and a small pump to keep the water circulating. I let the water sit for a couple hours or until the water in the bucket matches my temp in my tank .

I also use home Depot buckets haha

 

[Easy Reefing]

I also use home Depot buckets haha

Its good for mixing haha what size it your tank ? And people don’t use tap water because it could have high phosphates , nitrates or copper that could hurt your live stock or cause an algae bloom.

 

[Knight_Solaire01]

Its good for mixing haha what size it your tank ? And people don’t use tap water because it could have high phosphates , nitrates or copper that could hurt your live stock or cause an algae bloom.

32 gallon biocube. I decided to go with this as everything except for the wave maker and protein skimmer was already included.

 

[Knight_Solaire01]

32 gallon biocube. I decided to go with this as everything except for the wave maker and protein skimmer was already included.

My goal is to make it good enough for sea hours which require very very clean and maintained water. I am working from home which makes the feeding easy(they need to be fed three times a day). All I need to do is get red of the damsel fish and pony proof the power head. They have plenty of hitching posts ready to go.

 

[|Tom the Bomb|]

Hello one and all. I wasn't sure if this belonged here or in the new to reef forum. I am just wondering what is the safest way to mix a gallon of my own salt water from home with tap water and instant ocean sea salt. I know the instructions seem simple enough, but I hear people telling me simply mixing with tap is not good or not good enough. I don't have the set up right now to make salt water from home, and I don't want to wait until my off days to go top off some more from my LFS. Any advice?

Technically Mixing with tapwater is fine but under 2 conditions:

1. You have to use an excellent conditioner: basically I'm talking about Seachem Prime
2. You cannot have sensitive corals or maybe no corals AT ALL depending on the TDS and how good your tap water is in your area. So this option is only for maybe soft corals or FOWLR ppl

 

[Knight_Solaire01]

Technically Mixing with tapwater is fine but under 2 conditions:

1. You have to use an excellent conditioner: basically I'm talking about Seachem Prime
2. You cannot have sensitive corals or maybe no corals AT ALL depending on the TDS and how good your tap water is in your area. So this option is only for maybe soft corals or FOWLR ppl

Oh yeah I do have some sensitive hard corals in there. I will see about getting this RODI water and mixing in the sea salt.

 

[ApoIsland]

Hello one and all. I wasn't sure if this belonged here or in the new to reef forum. I am just wondering what is the safest way to mix a gallon of my own salt water from home with tap water and instant ocean sea salt. I know the instructions seem simple enough, but I hear people telling me simply mixing with tap is not good or not good enough. I don't have the set up right now to make salt water from home, and I don't want to wait until my off days to go top off some more from my LFS. Any advice?

As long as you are not located in Flint, Michigan or one of the fracking capitals of the world there is usually nothing wrong with using straight tap water in most areas that aren't big cities. I have used it exclusively in CO, CA, and HI with no problems. Give it a shot and see what happens. May not be necessary to filter.

 

[Knight_Solaire01]

As long as you are not located in Flint, Michigan or one of the fracking capitals of the world there is usually nothing wrong with using straight tap water in most areas that aren't big cities. I have used it exclusively in CO, CA, and HI with no problems. Give it a shot and see what happens. May not be necessary to filter.

I am located out of Nashville so I may need to see where my water comes from.

 

[|Tom the Bomb|]

I am located out of Nashville so I may need to see where my water comes from.

Pocket Size TDS & Temperature Meter (TDS-4TMA) - HM Digital

Shop The Best Saltwater Aquarium Equipment & Supplies at Saltwater Aquarium. We Carry Everything you will Need for your Fish Tank.

www.saltwateraquarium.com

Out of Nashville? Well, dont rely simply on checking if your city is a big one. test your water with a TDS meter like the one above and use your Nitrate and phosphate test kits in your tap.
I'm in Toronto (Big City) so TDS is ~100 but I dont have any sensitive corals, mostly FOWLR and some hardy soft corals. I use a 2x dose of prime sometimes.
Also if your TDS is shown low: <20, you can simply use a DI only filter with like 4 cartridges of DI. Its faster and more flow and cheaper with 0 wastewater. If not however you'll need a RODI filter.

I recommend the ones by AquaFX, a leading brand in RO.
If your tank isn't too big then you can get a 100gpd one like some of the ones here

Reverse Osmosis (RO/DI) | Aquarium Depot Canada

Explore Reverse Osmosis (RO/DI) at Aquarium Depot, your Toronto based saltwater aquarium store shipping across Canada.

www.aquariumdepot.ca

 

[Knight_Solaire01]

Pocket Size TDS & Temperature Meter (TDS-4TMA) - HM Digital

Shop The Best Saltwater Aquarium Equipment & Supplies at Saltwater Aquarium. We Carry Everything you will Need for your Fish Tank.

www.saltwateraquarium.com

Out of Nashville? Well, dont rely simply on checking if your city is a big one. test your water with a TDS meter like the one above and use your Nitrate and phosphate test kits in your tap.
I'm in Toronto (Big City) so TDS is ~100 but I dont have any sensitive corals, mostly FOWLR and some hardy soft corals. I use a 2x dose of prime sometimes.
Also if your TDS is shown low: <20, you can simply use a DI only filter with like 4 cartridges of DI. Its faster and more flow and cheaper with 0 wastewater. If not however you'll need a RODI filter.

I recommend the ones by AquaFX, a leading brand in RO.
If your tank isn't too big then you can get a 100gpd one like some of the ones here

Reverse Osmosis (RO/DI) | Aquarium Depot Canada

Explore Reverse Osmosis (RO/DI) at Aquarium Depot, your Toronto based saltwater aquarium store shipping across Canada.

www.aquariumdepot.ca

Thanks for the response!

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

As long as you are not located in Flint, Michigan or one of the fracking capitals of the world there is usually nothing wrong with using straight tap water in most areas that aren't big cities. I have used it exclusively in CO, CA, and HI with no problems. Give it a shot and see what happens. May not be necessary to filter.

Definitely not advice that I would ever give.

Sometimes, what you claim is true. Other times it is terribly incorrect, with elevated copper from the hobbyists own water pipes.

You want to risk that you (or the person that you recommended this to) are the one whose pipes are releasing too much copper into your water to be acceptable?

 

[Randy Holmes-Farley Verified Community Expert]

Thanks for the response!

Just remember that measuring the TDS of your tap water says nothing about its suitability for a reef tank. It just tells you that you may be able to purify it by DI only without that getting too expensive.

 

[|Tom the Bomb|]

Just remember that measuring the TDS of your tap water says nothing about its suitability for a reef tank. It just tells you that you may be able to purify it by DI only without that getting too expensive.

Imagine you test it and it shows 0....TDS
Lol not that it would happen but.
And Yes I mean if you dont have copper pipes and you test it and no copper its fine i guess