ihayat Posted November 19, 2004 Report Share Posted November 19, 2004 Hello! First time poster here. I'm trying to set up a reef aquarium (90 gallons) here in Ardrossan, AB. (Just east of Edmonton) We have well water here which is about pH 8.0 and relatively hard. Does someone here have any experience with setting up a marine aquarium with well water? I have the sump and protein skimmer and all that. Have to put it all together though, but before I can put water in there and get the Nitration cycle going I wanted some information. Thanks in advance! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ryan Posted November 19, 2004 Report Share Posted November 19, 2004 I dont have any experience but a good idea would be to get it all set up (put no live rock in there yet) have it run for a week fish less then add 3 green chromis or 3 damselfish. I would go with chromis they are less aggressive. THen if these fish live slowly build up your live rock (use cured) once that is built up start puting in fish (allow tank to cycle for 8 weeks with after the las peice of LR is added) once that is done your tank is considered cycled. Slowly add fish going from the hardiest fish the the weekes fish. Once you have your fish added slowly add inverts. In this order you will see if the well water is safe without wasting alot of money. if your chromis or damsels die then your water isnt any good and yopu need to do something to it. Make sure you buy healthy fish. O one thing DO NOT ADD DAMSELS AND CHROMIS DO NOT BUY JUST ! CHROMIS it will get lonly and perish DO NOT BUY 2 CHROMIS one will be dominant and chase the other into constant hiding. ADD 3 OR MORE chromis this will spread out the aggression and will look better. Dont add more than 5 1 inch fish. This is all off of how i cycled my tank. My readings and the word of others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pelle31 Posted November 19, 2004 Report Share Posted November 19, 2004 If your really worried about your water,go for RO. Thats what I use. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlkWolfe Posted November 19, 2004 Report Share Posted November 19, 2004 Unless you had high levels of some metals you could use it for initial fillup. always better to have RO for mixing new water and for top ups If you want to come into the city, bring some containers and i can fill you up with RO. as for cycling, unless you get fully cured rock from another reefers tank, itll be uncured by the time its shipped here. Do not add fish to cycle a saltwater tank. Thats just cruel. i dont know if you want to buy all your rock at once, or in small parcels. Following is for all at once.... Bring the rock in, throw it in some saltwater, if its uncured give it at least 6-8 weeks for the dieoffs to subside, and use either water changes or a skimmer to remove all the crap that dissolves off the rock into the water. Should only need to do maybe 1 or 2 decent sized water changes in the first week. Once you get some algea growth, which there will be plenty of after cycling uncured rock, check the ammonia/nitrites, and start adding your cleaning crew. Then give it a couple weeks for the snails to cleanup, and for the algea blooms to subside, and start adding your fish. Slowly, maybe 1 or 2 medium sized fish (3-5")every month. otherwise youll just end up with another algea bloom and maybe see ammonia in the water again. heh, and should have asked this to begin with, what ya planning on keeping? Happy reefing Josh Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pelle31 Posted November 20, 2004 Report Share Posted November 20, 2004 LOL Josh you are a typin maniac!! What I did was bought all my live rock from a guy that was gettin out of SW all together. Didn't take long for it too cycle and I had fish and my clean up crews in within 3 weeks. That was the pain free way!! But yea go with Josh's plan sound A OK to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ihayat Posted December 2, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 2, 2004 Hi again! Now that I have my 90 gallon aquarium all plumbed, I am thinking of adding water to it and let the pump and sump do their thing for a week or so. I don't know if I can even get access to my hard well-water here.. we have a water softener that sends the softened water everywhere in the house. I don't know if there even is a way to access unsoftened water. (Any ideas?) Would it be okay to put in softened well-water into the aquarium for starting a marine aquarium? Also, when I'm adding fish, etc. and I need to raise the hardness.. how can I do this? It just seems like a shame to add softened well water to the aquarium and then to add chemicals to harden it again. The person at the aquarium shop told me that when I'm adding the Instant Ocean to the water it will automatically adjust the hardness and pH level and make them alright. This can't be right! Is it? Any ideas? Thanks in advance!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtac Posted December 3, 2004 Report Share Posted December 3, 2004 It really depends on the type of salt that you are using for your water softener. NaCl will be fine, KCl you may get accelerated unwanted algae growth. I have a client that uses KCl for their softening unit and ontop of an irregular photoperiod and hair algae is the only issue that I've encountered WRT water softened source water. I have other clients (myself included) that use municipal tap water for their reef aquariums and no problems. Don't worry too much about hardening softened water. Everything you need to make salt water is in the mix as the LFS associate told you. Just mix, get the right specific gravity/salinity and you're in the right direction. I am assuming this is your first venture in SW, so going with that, use RO water. Start off doing everything on the right note and when you get some experience then you can venture off the beaten path. Just keep your lights off (or just use actinics) until you have something that will use the light energy. This will minimize unwanted algae growth. HTH Wilson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ihayat Posted December 3, 2004 Author Report Share Posted December 3, 2004 It really depends on the type of salt that you are using for your water softener. NaCl will be fine, KCl you may get accelerated unwanted algae growth. I have a client that uses KCl for their softening unit and ontop of an irregular photoperiod and hair algae is the only issue that I've encountered WRT water softened source water.I have other clients (myself included) that use municipal tap water for their reef aquariums and no problems. Don't worry too much about hardening softened water. Everything you need to make salt water is in the mix as the LFS associate told you. Just mix, get the right specific gravity/salinity and you're in the right direction. I am assuming this is your first venture in SW, so going with that, use RO water. Start off doing everything on the right note and when you get some experience then you can venture off the beaten path. Just keep your lights off (or just use actinics) until you have something that will use the light energy. This will minimize unwanted algae growth. HTH Wilson Yes, I do believe that we're using NaCl for the softener. Hmmm.. this is interesting. I really didn't believe that just adding the salt mix will take care of pH and hardness too. Wow.. that's great! I just thought that marine fish and inverts, etc. were picky about hardness/softness. I've been recommended RO water here too. I just don't own a RO setup. Is it expensive to get one? And is it worth it? And if I did get a RO setup going, would it simply take in my softened water or will I need to connect it to regular hard water? If I don't get an RO machine.. can I just buy about 110 gallons of RO water somehow? Hmmm.... Thanks for all the help! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wtac Posted December 3, 2004 Report Share Posted December 3, 2004 I'm not sure what prices are like in AB but here in ON, an 50gpd RO unit w/DI is ~$400 from the LFS. If you go to a place that sells stuff for potable drinking water (PDW), you can get the same unit for about ~$250. The inherent differences between the 2 are the porosity of the sediment and carbon cartridges. The LFS generally uses 1micron whereas PDW is usually 5 microns. Which is better? Of course finer the better but it will clog up faster and need to be replaced more frequently. You can either get a "tap" that you attach to the water line or get a faucet adapter that will feed the RO unit. I'd use the softened water to feed the RO unit as the RO membrane and the DI (if you get that option) will last much longer. Here's a link to help you with your decision. RO unit I'm not sure how much the LFS (~$0.69/gal in ON) or "bottled water" company, ie. Crystal Springs (~$5.00/5gal jug plus deposit), charges but I'd get some RO/distilled water that way or if you know anyone that works in a lab (university or business entity) you can get distilled or "millipore" processed water that way. Just bring lots of buckets w/lids . Or even ask the LFS if you can rent thier RO unit. Since you have an NaCl based water softening unit, you can throw caution into the wind and jut add the salt mix. I don't think you'll have much of a probelm doing that. HTH Wilson Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ihayat Posted January 10, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 10, 2005 Thanks to all the replies! I went and got myself a RO/DI unit online off of a company in Vancouver. Am enjoying the clean water now just for plain drinking too! Attached a long length of 1/8" tubing to bring in filtered water from the unit under the kitchen sink to my aquarium. Took a few days for my 110 gallon setup to be filled but it's finally all going now. Will have to figure out how to do the water changes but.. oh well. It's all good for now while the nitration cycle's in progress. Thanks again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cap'n Posted January 11, 2005 Report Share Posted January 11, 2005 Hey ihayat, Check out his site, http://www.canreef.com/ You'll find lots of useful SW info from lots of neighbours. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muck Posted January 11, 2005 Report Share Posted January 11, 2005 Hey ihayat,Check out his site, http://www.canreef.com/ You'll find lots of useful SW info from lots of neighbours. I second the Cpt on this. :thumbs: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ihayat Posted January 11, 2005 Author Report Share Posted January 11, 2005 Check out his site, http://www.canreef.com/You'll find lots of useful SW info from lots of neighbours. Oooo.. thanks for the recommendation. That's an excellent website! I've been browsing it all morning. Thanks again! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cap'n Posted January 12, 2005 Report Share Posted January 12, 2005 Hey ihayat,Check out his site, http://www.canreef.com/ You'll find lots of useful SW info from lots of neighbours. I second the Cpt on this. :thumbs: Hey muck, what brings you over to this side of the hydrometer? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
muck Posted January 13, 2005 Report Share Posted January 13, 2005 Hey muck, what brings you over to this side of the hydrometer? Do you mean the freshies?? I do have a FW tank as well. I have had cichlids for years... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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