I am just about ready to start my 55g tank. I bought an ASM G-1x skimmer from That Pet Place/That Fish Place over the weekend (Boy is that thing a hoss, it barely fits in my cabinet, I just hope it fits in the sump that I get…) I am stopping by my local Lowes this afternoon to pick up the hoses and stuff I need to run from the bottom of my tank to the sump.
The only real question I have at this point is, where do you all recommend getting distilled water? I live west of Felton, and have a very deep well (around 260ft deep) so I have very hard water that is running through a water softener. I have heard from many people that you should be using distilled water when mixing the water and salt for a saltwater aquarium (it helps control unwanted algae blooms). So that being said, where do I go about getting around 75g of distilled water if I don’t have access to an RO/DI unit? I would assume I can’t go down to the Sam’s Club and by 10 cases of 1 gallon jugs of distilled water, because that is normally spring water. Any recommendations?
You want RO/DI or distilled water, your local fish store probably has some they can sell you, somewhere around $0.50/gal maybe?. You are probably on the same aquafer that I am on and started my tank on. The phosphates were too high and I have since bought an RO/DI unit. I would pick up one of those if I were you, it will pay for its self.
[quote=“ihuntinde, post:1, topic:1324”]
I would assume I can’t go down to the Sam’s Club and by 10 cases of 1 gallon jugs of distilled water, because that is normally spring water. Any recommendations?[/quote]
If you buy the stuff with the pink lablel at wally world labled as “Distilled” you can in fact use that water. Belive me though, it will be cheaper to buy an RO unit. We started by buying a bunch of that water, and should have just bought an RO unit. You can get a decent RO unit from a few of our sponsors for around 150$. If you are filling a 55g tank, that comes out to only 3$ a gallon for the first fill. If you figure that you will be topping of with an average of 2 gallons a week, which is on the low end, the RO unit will pay for its self very quickly.
OK, so I convinced the wife to purchase a Whirlpool RO system from Lowes. $147.00. Seemed pretty reasonable, but only does about 24gallons per day… so for my first fill this sounds like it’s going to take about 72 hours worth of constant running to fill my tank and sump… does that sound right? I hate to think I just spent $150 to find out.
The other thing is that it sounds like my once a month 25% water change is going to take like 12 hours to do… Just seems a little excessive. What do you all do in this case, cause even some of the ones that I looked at on the aquarium sites were only 25g per day.
I am guessing like all other things that I should have spent like $250 to $300 and bought one with an extra pump and all that? I am not looking forward to this thing taking 5 hours to fill a 5g bucket…
Thanks for all of the replies and the PMs. After buying the RO unit from Lowe’s and getting it all installed, I believe I may have jumped a little early. It looks like I am going to buy the Typhoon 100gpd. Unfortunately, with just having bought and installed the unit from Lowe’s, I am not real sure when I can afford to put out the $150.00 to buy it. The amount of money that I budgeted is quickly dwindling down, and I am still not done prioritizing. verdict_in
The biggest thing I am struggling with is the amount of time needed and how I am going to handle that amount of water. When you all first started your tank, did you premix the water 5 gallons at a time?
I’m sure others will weigh in on this, but I’ll share what I did, and have been very happy with. For drinking water, you want RO, but ideally for the purest water for a reef, you want the water deionized (DI). So you’ll want a combination RO/DI system. Because DI water has been stripped of nearly everything, its not particularly healthy for drinking purposes. So, what I did, is I ran a T fitting off the RO discharge and the RO water is fed to my refrigerator for drinking water and ice. The other side of the fitting is fed to the DI filter, which is what I use for my reef tank. That DI line is run to a 16 gallon food safe tub that I put a float valve in. Therefore, I can produce and have up to 16 gals of stored RODI water which automatically shuts off when it reaches the level of the float valve. You could use a larger container if you want more water on standby. But the key is getting one that is food safe as normal non-food grade trash cans can leach chemicals from the plastic. Whoever you’re getting the RODI unit from should also sell the float valve. I used airwaterice.com.
Also by having a storage container, you could go with a lower production unit; 50gpd versus 100 gpd. From what I read, the lower production units are actually better.
Also, before you order something, I think you could simply add a DI filter to your Lowes unit. Airwaterice.com sells them too.
My tank was empty so I filled the tank directly. If you have live rock or live sand you should premix. I used a 44 gallon rubbermaid trash can to make water in as it saves a lot of time.
[quote=“a1amap, post:10, topic:1324”]
My tank was empty so I filled the tank directly. If you have live rock or live sand you should premix.[/quote]
I currently make up water in 5 gallon batches. But I can make 5 gallons of water in just a few hours. The RO unit you bought from Lowes can be returned. They have a no haggle return policy.
I once returned a paint sprayer because “it sucked” - no problem.
Hmm… Interesting. I will give them a call and see what they say. I would hate to completely disassemble this thing box it most of the way back up, and then get all the way there and have them tell me because i already cut all of the lines, and filled the system with water that I can’t return it…
[quote=“a1amap, post:10, topic:1324”]
My tank was empty so I filled the tank directly. If you have live rock or live sand you should premix.[/quote]
I currently make up water in 5 gallon batches. But I can make 5 gallons of water in just a few hours. The RO unit you bought from Lowes can be returned. They have a no haggle return policy.
I once returned a paint sprayer because “it sucked” - no problem.[/quote]
Craig, do you like know every single store that has a ‘no haggle’ return policy and religiously shop there?
[quote=“a1amap, post:10, topic:1324”]
My tank was empty so I filled the tank directly. If you have live rock or live sand you should premix.[/quote]
I currently make up water in 5 gallon batches. But I can make 5 gallons of water in just a few hours. The RO unit you bought from Lowes can be returned. They have a no haggle return policy.
I once returned a paint sprayer because “it sucked” - no problem.[/quote]
Craig, do you like know every single store that has a ‘no haggle’ return policy and religiously shop there?[/quote]
