tap water

[afromage5000]

Why is using tap water in a SW tank bad? I haven't gotten any specifics on what problems are caused by hard tap water. i understand why nitrates in tap are bad but whats wrong with some minerals?

 

[1979camaro]

phosphates and silicates also cause a lot of problems, particularly in reefs with high light intensity

 

[Toam]

How about Chlorine and Chloramine? both can be lethal to fish to the best of my knowledge, and typically tap water can be heavy with both if you live in a city. let alone fluoride and all the other agents that the city adds to our water to help us.

 

[KahluaZzZ]

and all the unwanted rust sometimes

 

[dbacksrat]

Heavy metals do wonderful things to sensitive inverts (snails in particular). It's always great to drop money on snails, take the time to drip acclimate them, and then watch them die after a couple days.

 

[wayne]

Tap water can be a pain as it will possibly contain high levels of nitrate, phosphate, silicates and organics, all good ways tp give you difficult to fix algae problems.
Rust is overrated as a problem. Chlorine is a non starter as you stuff the water full of Cl- ions anyway.
Heavy metals may or may not be a problem - you can scout around for research by Richard Harkerwho has evidence the biological activity elevates heavy metal concentrations round reefs far above NSW levels anyway, in contradiction Dr Ron Shimek reckons they're satans work, and others reckon it jsut doesn't matter.


You might bear in mind your tap water is not my tap water - my tap water sometimes has lower TDS than some peoples RO - if you live in a large metro area or live in a country which has flaky water standards (much of the US) then don't use tap. Lets just say RO units don't sell well in Scandinavia.

FWIW well water is very likely worse!