The Puffer Forum

I used tap water for my GSPs in marine for several years. I'd NEVER use it for my reef tanks.

jdak wrote:

JoseDepacos wrote:Do it my way or you will FAIL! (Sorry. It just sounded that way to me) Anywho, I have several family members with fowlr and or marine/reef tanks that exclusively use well water and city water. Their tanks have been up and running for years with no issues.

Sorry, i'm for fish health. I've never been in a marine forum where people argue that tap water is fine. It's just unheard of to me. Years before i had an RO, i bought my water from the grocery. I thought it was standard practice. BTW, my tap water reads about 600ppm. Whats yours? Or have you neglected to look at that as well. (Sorry. I can get smart too.)

When trying to research the best ways to care for something one intends to spend a lot of money and time on, it makes the most sense to get as many opinions as possible and use all the info to hopefully make the right choices. My point being I value everyones opinion here when I have questions (including yours) and I merely thought you post was poorly worded and one might take it the way I interpreted it. It was not my intent to flame you and am sorry if you took it that way. I prostrate myself before you and beg your forgiveness.

Most tap water does have various problems, but it's always best to know your local water supplier quality. R/O water is always a known factor, that reliability does make it safer. If you live in the North Eastern USA, you might very well have excellent tap water with no nitrates or similar run-off wastes, and the water is generally either a decently buffered neutral to a good carbonate hardness and slightly higher PH, both quite suitable as water for a FOWLR type tank.

ok, sorry as well. "In My Opinion" even with having good tap water in your community, most water is run thru copper pipes for who knows how many feet. When you use water for the first time, that water has just been sitting there in these pipes. Not to mention these copper pipes are most likely welded with lead which leaks contaminants too. Also fluoride and chlorine that can build up over time.

This is an image where some municipal water suppliers test rainbow trout on tap water pollution. So yes, it is done all the time without RO water.

Those are all valid concerns with new plumbing, or any plumbing that has recently been worked on(if you live in an apartment, keep your eyes out for this!), definately worth pointing out. I know someone that wiped out a while fish tank with his first water change on the new pipes he had put in.

With time, however, copper pipes build up a protective layer of a beneficial slime on top of a layer of fully oxidized copper which coat the interior of the pipe and slows the process of lead leeching to zero and copper leeching to next to zero.

If you run your pipes for a while before a water change(automatic for me, I use a python) there will be no detectable levels of pipe leechings in the "passing" water. Running the water before using is always recommended.

I just about only keep puffers, so perhaps high brackish-marine puffers are just as tolerant as FW puffers? I have only cared for other SW fish at the store where I worked, and that system has a massive wet dry, a SEACLONE 100! on a 400 gallon system, almost no live rock, it was perpetually a nitrate nightmare... it made everything about FOWLR tanks like I have seem like so much less of a problem. The reef in that store also had the most green hair algae in the world, something I am certain was partially from tap water nutrients.