Well water and a reef tank

[LEOreefer]

Hello all
My wife and I are getting ready to build on land, we will be utilizing a well for our water source. I have no experience with reef tanks and well water so I figure bring the question here. Who here runs a successful reef tank with well water? And what does your setup look like (RODI? Booster pump? Etc) ?

 

[Ballman17]

Same thing here, built a new house and run off a well. Haven't had any issues. Water softener pre-rodi and a Max water 6 stage from amazon. I had enough pressure where I didn't need a booster but that all depends on the well, I imagine

 

[Reab]

Grace from The Reef Farm in NC would be your best source for information. She has been using well water for years to grow corals in her greenhouses.

 

[Mike konesky]

Co2 is a big concern with well water. Not degassing can exhaust resin rapidly. My well water has high CO2 and silicates. Additional anion resin cartridges solve the silicate issue. When setting up a booster on a well pump it's a good idea to set the final booster pressure after your well pump has cycled and the maximum pressure has been reached for the house. Not doing this will likely exceed the psi you are after. Possible pesticides and other nasties will get taken care of by carbon blocks. An additional carbon block is a great idea.
Get the water tested and let us know what's in it for more help.

 

[Aqua Man]

Hello all
My wife and I are getting ready to build on land, we will be utilizing a well for our water source. I have no experience with reef tanks and well water so I figure bring the question here. Who here runs a successful reef tank with well water? And what does your setup look like (RODI? Booster pump? Etc) ?

When we were looking for land, first question was about the water and well. Was surprised to find out that some actually all share a well! There was up to 4 houses on 1 well. Another shocker was that during the summer in some areas we looked, water actually ran out and had to be trucked in!! Other areas have high arsenic. My grandparents well water smell

If it’s possible I’d talk to anyone close by your land. Most likely all will share the same aqueduct. Will give you an idea on water quality.

I run 2 sediment filters and 2 carbon and a booster pump to keep at optimal pressure. We also have high CO2 but have a low TDS so I do not use DI.

Successful? I think I’m doing all right.

 

[paintman]

We have well water and run a softner. I would highly recomend you shock the well once a year to kill any nasty bacteria. I had an outbreak of some kind of GHA or possibly lynbya about 4-5 months ago. One of the things I did was shock my well along with all the other methods and my tank is now completly clean of whatever it was I had going on. Not sure if the shock was the key but it didn't hurt. Even my health inspector reomended shocking the well once a year.

 

[Stang351w]

I'm still working on setting up my tank, but I have a private well for my house. I would just get the water tested to see your starting point and consider if you plan on drinking the water and the effects on appliances in your house along with the aquarium. Scale build up, ice cubes with calcium grit and rust stains are not fun. The worse your starting point the shorter the lifespan for any RODI consumables.

I have 3 whole house filters: heavy metals (iron/aresenic), sediment, carbon then finally a softener before my RODI. I also have an inline chlorinator and retention tank, but currently not using. The chlorine would typically be removed by the carbon filter. If you want drinking water from it, remember to split off a line before the DI stage to use for icemaker/drinking. I also use a booster pump for the RO unit and 2 membranes for 150gpd.

I will see how it goes this winter when the tank is finally up!

 

[Stang351w]

I would highly recomend you shock the well once a year to kill any nasty bacteria.

I also did a shock about a year ago, little bit of a pain to do properly if you want to sanitize all the lines in the house. My well has high concentrations of iron bacteria.

 

[Blue Cheese]

I run off well water,it kind of depends on what’s important to you,what’s important for me is to use less water,I use a booster pump and two 150 gpd membranes,I use up more filters and resin but I have less waste

 

[dangles]

I’m about to embark on this same well water journey. What should I have the well water tested for specifically? The company that drilled the well gave me these numbers:

35000 total hardness
1 part iron
45000 softness

I’m honestly not even sure what that means, and I have no idea what if anything else was tested for (I wasn’t there at the time).

 

[Silly clownfish]

Local water testing sites should be able to do a thorough analysis of about 4 pages of things you can’t pronounce. Yeah, it will likely cost about $500, but you will be drinking and bathing in this water.

Do not settle for just the basic tests that are required for real estate transfers that just check basics like pH and coliforms. You can do that every year or so, but spend the money to check for contaminates before you make settlement. It is not uncommon to have heavy metals, petroleum products , or dry cleaning chemicals from historic nearby uses. These things in particular hang around.

for more info, and a list of labs:

Well Testing | Wells | Private Water Systems | Drinking Water | Healthy Water | CDC

Education and information about well testing, including when to test, water quality indicators, total coliforms, fecal coliforms, pH, nitrate, volatile organic compounds, total dissolved solids, germs, sewage, feces, chemicals, and state certified drinking water laboratories.

www.cdc.gov