The Natural Water Experiment

[EmdeReef]

I think the fears of using NSW are a bit exaggerated. My biggest concern would be pollution and would avoid certain areas.

If you want to be safe from hitchhikers you can run the water a few times through a DE filter.

 

[Lifelongaquaria]

Recently saw a store in Australia that has been successfully running 50% water changes of natural sea water for ten plus years on one of Adam's YouTube videos. So my bad experiences with using natural sea water I blame on the pollution and unbalanced ecosystem of Panama City Beach.

 

[ScottR]

Waikiki aquarium in Honolulu uses only NSW and they have some beautiful tanks. I don’t know their method though. But they do sell their water to aquarists. As @EmdeReef stated, I’d be more worried about pollution. As for hitchhikers, I don’t see you having a mantis shrimp popping up out of nowhere. But I’m sure there are lots of spores in the water from who knows what. Some cool things could pop up

 

[Jamo7]

We shall see, I think the temperature difference will knock out most things but who knows! The snail is cruising just fine, I have some gsp in my DT that needs to go so maybe that’s next for test tank.

 

[Jamo7]

I think the fears of using NSW are a bit exaggerated. My biggest concern would be pollution and would avoid certain areas.

If you want to be safe from hitchhikers you can run the water a few times through a DE filter.

The water where I am located is pretty clean and we have really big tide swings about once or twice a month moving old water out and new water (and crab) in.

 

[ScottR]

We shall see, I think the temperature difference will knock out most things but who knows! The snail is cruising just fine, I have some gsp in my DT that needs to go so maybe that’s next for test tank.

I agree. The higher temp alone probably will kill off all of the things that usually stay in much cooler waters.

 

[Lifelongaquaria]

Iodine will kill most stuff and be good for Coral in right amounts but would lose some of the beneficial properties of the living area water

 

[Matt Carden]

No I haven’t yet, I was leaning to a flipped scraper. My wife keeps my paychecks from my full time job, but I also do catering on the side for tank stuff! Get a check tomorrow from that.

I have the Flipper for my 150. It's so easy to use but it doesn't work on the harder algae. Haven't mastered the flipper part but it does jump around inside corners very easily.

 

[Matt Carden]

From where? I have not had anyone respond who actually does this? What’s your process? Do you need to treat it? What’s the temperature difference? And have you ran into any troubles? Sorry I have 500 questions.

@Paul B uses exclusively NSW out of I believe the Hudson river.

 

[Sisterlimonpot]

When I was stationed in Ventura CA, the university in Santa Barbara has a marine biology department, that pulls in sea water off the coast (I want to say 2500 feet out 50 feet down). It's pushed through a sand filter and they have a spigot outside the lab that is open to the public.

There are plenty of reefers in that area that solely use that water for their tanks. I started my tank with that water, but for me the distance wasn't worth the hassle. A good buddy of mine made a day out of it. Once a month, he would put a 300g container in the back of his truck and fill it.

There were a lot of reports that certain times of the year they would get algae blooms in their tank. It was right around the rainy season, and if i remember correctly had a lot to do with rain water draining back into the ocean taking everything on land with it. It definitely has its benefits as well as its drawbacks, but most of those guys that swore by it was willing to deal with the occasional bloom for all the nutrients that you don't get from mixing salt water.

 

[MnFish1]

You live in a nice area. Not sure I would use water from the Strait of Juan de Fuca mainly due to pollution - though its better than Puget Sound - it isn't great (from what I've read/experienced). I would worry that you could introduce something (a chemical/bacteria) that doesn't hurt the local population that could devastate a tropical tank (i.e. a bacteria thats kept in check in the cold water but would rapidly multiply in a warm water environment) - or a pollutant in the phytoplankton from there - that the local fish, etc are used to - which would cause toxicity in a fish freshly exposed. Either way - as you said - its probably easier/less expensive to just buy saltwater (but its an interesting experiment. Good luck!

 

[stefanm]

I've been using NSW since march last year, I live in the tropics and don't treat or filter the water at all. I collect during the incoming tide at night with a rope and bucket, only hitchhikers I've had seems to be a couple of urchins as my bucket lip scrapes the wall of the jetty.

Corals love it if I do a water change whilst it's still live. Wouldn't use anything else to be honest, I stored extra for the rainy season, unfortunately my sump cracked and I lost around 300 litres of water, so I'm rationing a little bit.

 

[Jamo7]

Was on a break while I figured out why the app was not working lol somehow I missed the memo on that. Got my first water change done (also dumped 5 gallons of water on my garage floor.. whoops). Now it really smells like a beach in there, thinking about getting sand in there, throw on the Trunks and grab a margarita. Anyway have more algae growing green stuff I just noticed today. It’s growing quick “Gary” the snail (my kids named all the snails Gary.. wonder where they came up with that name?) can’t keep up on his own. Going to have to get more CUC.

 

[Jamo7]

You live in a nice area. Not sure I would use water from the Strait of Juan de Fuca mainly due to pollution - though its better than Puget Sound - it isn't great (from what I've read/experienced). I would worry that you could introduce something (a chemical/bacteria) that doesn't hurt the local population that could devastate a tropical tank (i.e. a bacteria thats kept in check in the cold water but would rapidly multiply in a warm water environment) - or a pollutant in the phytoplankton from there - that the local fish, etc are used to - which would cause toxicity in a fish freshly exposed. Either way - as you said - its probably easier/less expensive to just buy saltwater (but its an interesting experiment. Good luck!

Canada side has a history of pollution. But that’s 17-18 miles of pure 300 ft deep water, people bring that up from time to time seems like a long and unlikely distance for pollution to travel especially when you figure in tides and the open ocean is roughly 40-50 miles west (May be longer or shorter don’t quote those numbers) But this is all the point of the experiment. See what happens.

 

[Bryson.bobby]

Was on a break while I figured out why the app was not working lol somehow I missed the memo on that. Got my first water change done (also dumped 5 gallons of water on my garage floor.. whoops). Now it really smells like a beach in there, thinking about getting sand in there, throw on the Trunks and grab a margarita. Anyway have more algae growing green stuff I just noticed today. It’s growing quick “Gary” the snail (my kids named all the snails Gary.. wonder where they came up with that name?) can’t keep up on his own. Going to have to get more CUC.

Haha. Sounds like your tank is going through it’s cycle

 

[BeejReef]

Go Gary, go Gary!

 

[AlexKintner]

Gary.. wonder where they came up with that name?

If you listen very closely... you may hear him 'meow'.

 

[Bryson.bobby]

How’s everything going? Any updates?

 

[Jamo7]

Oh, I took it down. Crab season ended which limited my off shore water time to zero. And I got tired of up keeping two tanks. Gary made his way to my DT and I have a new DT sitting in my garage, needs some work but build thread will be up soonish..... and it will be big and awesome!