Initial fill up: Tap or RO water?

[AZDesertRat]

Later I will post some pictures of problems within the treatment and distribution systems of a typical water utility that users have no control over nor are even aware of. Things like backflow from a hose stuck in the treewell of a recently fertilized tree or a livestock trough. Or a fire hydrant that gets knocked off on the corner or Joe contractor digs into a water main which takes out the adjacent Sewer lateral. I have personal photos I took of every one of those. Or it rains buckets and the treatment plant floods like in Atlanta a few years ago. Or what is tragically happening in Flint right now.
The bottom line is you have absolutely no idea what you are putting in your reef and you can't control it. For $125 or so you can have 100% total control over that and you can eliminate that doubt from your mind. I have literally dozens of real firsthand horror stories from my 43+ years in the water utility and engineering industry that would make you sick. Water quality shouldn't be taken lightly and reefkeeping is a big commitment if done right.

 

[LIreefguy106]

Wow. I was not expecting this kind of response from the reefing community. Thank you everyone! Amongst the myriad of experiences and responses, it looks like I'll be hiking to my LFS and get the RO water. I'll ask if they have a maintenance truck with a hose and reservoir that I can hire and have them fill up the tank for me. But I may have to get an RODI unit if I have any expectation to be in this for the long haul (which I do plan on). The RODI unit seems to be a mainstay in the hobby just like a sump and a skimmer. I had a feeling that was going to be the direction I was headed towards. This may sound like a stupid request, but does anyone have a picture they can share where they have their RODI unit hooked up in their basement? My tank is going to be on the first floor of my home and the only spot I would consider hooking up an RO unit is my basement. What would be the best way to do this. Main water line to RODI to a Brute bin? Any help is appreciated. Thanks again for stopping in on this post, seems like a lot of years of experience here and want to gather as much knowledge as I can. Kudos reefers, kudos.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

For me, it's not that I don't see the risk, I just feel it's a small one and not worth the avoidance. We take calculated risks all the time.... some bypassing QT.... some have large glass tanks in earthquake country. Even running a heater without a backup Ranco is an extra risk and the odds of your heater going rouge is more of an actual risk than that of needing to retain Erin Brockovich. I do not run heaters without them, yet I'm sure most don't consider the added risk worth intervening over. It's not that they're not making an informed decision, they just weigh the risk differently. So, the odds of the initial fill coming to bite me in the bootie, isn't worth the water wastage to me. I do large water changes after the cycle, no matter what my water source, that dilutes the risk even more.

 

[jsker]

Before the big push to Ro/di filteration. I always used tap water, to start and to do top offs too. I would use a filer or something and put in an additive to get rid of the cloriene. If you really want to ask someone who has had a tank set up for along time ask @Paul B and you will know.

 

[Lionfish Lair]

When I met my husband, he was topping off with his garden hose. Straight up garden hose. Now, water has changed a lot since then and I don't know if he would get away with it today, but I almost had a heart attack at the time. Then I figured who was I to argue? He's been at it over 40 years before he met me and my RO/DI.

 

[Hunter S Thompson]

Some people have really good tap water, others don't. TDS isn't the right way to measure your tap water. You could have a TDS of 800 but if it's all Calcium, Carbonate and Sodium, then great, your reef will love it. Do a web search and find out what is in your water. Most areas will publish an Annual Drinking Water Quality Report. For example, here's one for my house near Lake Travis in Austin Tx: http://www.cedarparktexas.gov/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=4872

 

[11cmortarman]

+1 on checking your local water report. At minimum i would check the tds of your tap water.

 

[11cmortarman]

IMO I would start with rodi or distilled. Why risk it? When I started my 90 gallon I hauled in 20 gallons of rodi. Needless to say it sucked and I never want to do it again, but in my mind I wanted to give my system every chance for success from the beginning. Not saying you would not succeed using tap to start but just my 0.02 cents.

 

[11cmortarman]

sorry i'm dumb hauled in 20 5 gallon buckets of water ^

 

[AZDesertRat]

Tap water changes. It is not always the same. Those who use it are skating on thin ice.
What happens when a storm blows through and the treatment plant has to change their method of treatment or chemical dosages? The end product changes. Or when they change the sources or blends when they start more wells for the summer demands, or start using a back up reservoir? The water quality changes. Or when Joe Contractor digs into that main on the new construction project down the street. This is the worst of all since it is already in the distribution system and cannot be further treated, and thye may not know until someone calls so are late in isolating the problem and notifying the public.
Water is not stable, the public is really unaware of what goes on and what can and cannot be controlled. We have taken water for granted for many many years, Flint is a perfect example and not the only situation like that in the country. Become educated or knowledgable about water quality. Its not something to be taken lightly. All it takes is one simple incident to wipe out hundreds or thousands of $$ in livestock and it can be easily prevented for less than $150. That $150 can also be used to produce your RO drinking water so you don't have to spend that or more on all those plastic bottles of drinking water too, its simple to add a drinking water kit to any RO/DI for about $60.

 

[Kungpaoshizi]

Fill with RO/DI. Tap usually contains copper, this will absorb into materials. This doesn't even account for all the other stuff that might have a cascading effect or itself absorb into the seals and/or tank. (this is why people avoid copper medicated tanks)

Easier to just know you're putting only water in vs other stuff.

 

[AZDesertRat]

I said I would post a few photos of water quality issues out of both the utilities and the end users control that can be catastrophic and you probably wouldn't even know it happened until it is too late. Do a water change during any of these and it would not be pretty.

This is a water treatment plant that was inundated by rising rivers and streams after a rain storm:

This was a construction project that went very wrong. While replacing a waterline the soil caved in and broke the existing main. What they didn't know was there was a sanitary sewer main under the water main which also broke and caused a major cross connection between potable water and raw sewage. The issue was not discovered until they could isolate the water valves and pump the excavation out. It was too late by then and a large portion of a water distribution system was shut down until repairs, disinfection and bacteria sampling could be performed. The bad thing is what about the time period before discovery and notification while people were using the water? It happens every day.

And another almost identical situation

Here is a fire hydrant that was hit by a passenger car. Fortunately this was a dry barrel hydrant with a valve on the bottom end so water did not come gushing out. Take a look at the barnacles and iron bacteria growth inside the hydrant. This is potable, drinking water quality water that meets all federal standards set by the EPA and this hydrant wasnt all that old. Is this what you want in your reef system?

Or the case here in AZ several years ago wher two young boys died from Naegleria fowleri which until that time had never been discovered in deep well water from a flowing aquifer. This baffled the CDC and the state health authorities. It was a sad period in my life as I was personally involved with both incidents.

The thing is you really don't have any idea about your tap water quality and much of it is beyond even the Utilities control such as the dummy who sticks his garden hose in a tree well rather than providing an air gap by keeping it above the tree well or berm.

 

[shoelaceike]

Your making me a lot more nervous to drink tap water then to put in my tank. Lol

 

[AZDesertRat]

That's why we have used RO for drinking water for the last 18 years in our home. It is simple and cheap to add a check valve and drinking water kit to a reef quality RO/DI system so you get the best of both worlds. RO/DI for the reefs and ultrapure water for other needs like battery water, and RO only separated from the DI by the check valve for drinking, cooking and crystal clear ice cubes. Easy to justify a good RO/DI to the wife when you use it for both.

 

[Bdog4u2]

It took me a week to fill my 150 using ro water filling 5 gallon buckets in the sink and pouring in. I used to work for rainsoft so I was using ro water for tanks before a lot of people were I knew what was in the water. I've had my unit for 20 years

 

[11cmortarman]

@AZDesertRat not to hijack thread but I live in el paso and the tds out of the tap is about 500...how many stage rodi from spectrapure would you recommend

 

[zoomonster]

I started my first reef tank about 26 years ago. For a few years I was using reasonably good tap water treated with stress coat and filtered with a Magnum 330 with either straight carbon or chemipure. I had pretty good luck but I was also mostly keeping fish, mushrooms, zoanthids, soft corals and some LPS. I think I got my first RO/DI late 90's and haven't looked back. Now days a RO/DI unit is as must have as a skimmer(well some would argue that). With those two other filters or UV are absolute secondary (if needed at all, especially UV).

If you can bite the bullet and get one now for your fill up. Even if you buy fill up water your going to constantly need it for topoff and water changes. Trips to the fish store will get old and add up fast. It always amazes me the steady flow of people coming in the fish store to buy RO/DI or saltwater. I think most places saltwater is like $1 a gallon and RO/DI maybe half that.

 

[Bdog4u2]

@AZDesertRat not to hijack thread but I live in el paso and the tds out of the tap is about 500...how many stage rodi from spectrapure would you recommend

Mine has been as high as 650 ppm and my 4 stage got it to 5 ppm and then 0 out my di cartridge. The tap water is technically ok to drink but if you knew exactly everything that was is it most people would never drink it again.

 

[AZDesertRat]

Ignore the word "stages". It is an ebay term that means next to nothing. Pay attention to what is in each stage and not how many there are. 6 or 7 stages of low quality fiters or hollow horizontal tubes with outdated resin bobbing around in them will never match 4 properly designed stages.

My TDS is anywhere between 550 and 860 normally and I use 5 well thought out stages. One 0.2 micron absolute rated pleated sediment filter, one 0.5 micron carbon block, one 90 GPD hand tested and guaranteed 99% high rejection rate RO membrane and two full size vertical DI filters. The DI is MaxCap resin in the first and SilicaBuster resin in the second. I get 18-24 months out of the sediment and carbon filters by monitoring headloss and chlorine breakthru, 1000+ gallons out of the MaxCap DI cartridge and 3000+ gallons out of the SilicaBuster cartridge. I disinfect the system at each filter change and I monitor the TDS using a handheld COM-100 TDS meter at multiple points on a regular basis so I know exacty how each component is working and protecting the next filter downstream.

For high TDS and hard waters I always recommend the MaxCap systems. I'm not a believer in flush kits, manual flush, auto flush etc. Keep the waste ratio where it should be for your conditions and keep up with the regular minimal maintenance and monitoring and you will get a decade or more out of the system. My current MaxCap UHE-100 is over 8 years old on the original membrane and still producing around 135GPD at 95-100 psi at 99.4% rejection rate. I paid more upfront but have more than made that up in filter, membrane and DI savings not t mention water and sewer savings with the UHE. I've owned 5 RO or RO/DI systems personally and worked around many more in my career and nothing compares to the Spectrapure systems.

 

[LIreefguy106]

Feel free for anyone to chime in, I can see this is a hot topic in the community and I'm getting closer to an RODI unit. Thanks for the support guys and gals. I'm almost ready for some water in the tank. Does anyone have pictures of their RODI system, might need some instruction on a proper assembly.