San Antonio/Edwards Aquifer- Tap Water or RO Water?

[smiller]

I am new to the San Antonio area. Do most planted tank keepers here use tap water or RO/DI systems? Thanks!

FYI....Here is the most recent water quality chart from SAWS. http://www.saws.org/our_water/waterq...t/charts.shtml

[rocketdude1234]

I use R/O for most set ups.

[mr_bob]

i use tap water and my tanks are all fine. algae issues but that comes from no co2 in the tank and no ferts.
I have a panther fiddler crab, a few feeder ghost shrimp, 2 orange bee shrimp, a million platy fry, and about 100 fish that live just fine on just treated tap water.

I also only treat for chlorine as everything ive read about saws is that they dont use chlorimine

[farebox]

I kept planted tanks for over three years with just tap water, but had CO2 system set up on my 55GA planted tank. Now I have 125GA, 55GA, and 40GA tanks set up with discus fish, I use mix of ro/di with tap water for all water changes the last 11 months......

[smiller]

Originally Posted by farebox

I kept planted tanks for over three years with just tap water, but had CO2 system set up on my 55GA planted tank. Now I have 125GA, 55GA, and 40GA tanks set up with discus fish, I use mix of ro/di with tap water for all water changes the last 11 months......

You made the change because you started keeping discus or you just decided to start using the mix? Do you use a 50/50 mix?

[farebox]

I use 50/50 mix because I am keeping discus fish now. I have only two small planted tanks, and use just tap, no CO2 or daily fert's. Both doing just great with very little up keep. Spend a lot of time with the discus tanks....

[Psionic]

My main tank is planted and so is my shrimp tank. I use tap water with water conditioner. I've never had any problems. I co2 and fert both tanks as well.

[CT1]

Yep, but I have a large reef aquarium-its much easier and in the long run cheaper to just buy a RO/DI system (around $200) instead of buying gallons of RO/DI water from the LFS. Had a freshwater aquarium a few years ago and I used tap water w/ a PUR water filter attached to the faucet and water conditioner-no problems at all considering how hard our water at the house was.

[humblepie]

Tap water here in SA is horrible. I'm going to state that up front. The amount of chloramines they add to the water is ridiculous.

Case in point, I've been trying for weeks now to get a new 60gal tank cycled. I even used some older media, and all the "live bacteria" products I could test. There is literally way too much ammonia in the water for the bacteria to even grow right.

Basically the test I use, the API liquid test master kit, only goes up to 8ppm reading on the ammonia chart. You are suppose to wait 5 minutes after putting in the drops, but for me the water in my tank reaches 8ppm on the scale in about 20 seconds.

If I test the water straight from the tap it shows zero ammonia. When I add chems to treat the chloramines then testing will reveal the massive amounts of ammonia in the water.

I decided to use some RO/DI water. Just to make sure I did the same ammonia test on my RO/DI water that I treated with chloramine chems. Even after treatment the water showed ammonia free. Which it is suppose to because there was no chloramines in the RO/DI water I used. So I did a massive water change of 40 gallons out of my 60 gallon tank using RO/DI water. Previously it was all tap water.

After the change my tank is still testing at 8ppm ammonia. THAT is how concentrated they have the chloramines in the water here.

So if you are setting up an aquarium here in SA using the SAWS tap water I highly recommend you do not. It will kill your tank or prevent it from cycling at all.

[farebox]

I am no water testing type guy, but been keeping tanks here in SA for the last 28 years with no problems with freshwater fish/plants...."KISS"(kept it simple)my friend. We all know the what the water is around here, stop trying to change it,"chasing the dragon". Never test my water, but have learned to deal with it. Just started the discus over a year ago. Then again started using ro/di water for "breeding". Otherwise I keep my discus in SA tap.

[humblepie]

Originally Posted by farebox

I am no water testing type guy, but been keeping tanks here in SA for the last 28 years with no problems with freshwater fish/plants...."KISS"(kept it simple)my friend. We all know the what the water is around here, stop trying to change it,"chasing the dragon". Never test my water, but have learned to deal with it. Just started the discus over a year ago. Then again started using ro/di water for "breeding". Otherwise I keep my discus in SA tap.

They just started adding chloramines to SA water though. I mean really recently in the last year. They are adding way to much to make sure they are doing the new EPA regs. That's why I say the SAWS tap water right now is horrible for starting a new tank.

[TWA]

Just buy prime. Chloramines = chlorine and ammonia. You break the chloramine bond and you're poisoning your fish with ammonia. API water conditioner breaks the bond but doesn't take care of ammonia. Prime does, ect ect I've poisoned my discus with ammonia using API water conditioner. Even your RO should have ammonia I believe ammonia passes through the membranes ect. I could be wrong, they've messed up water here in KC too with chloramines though.

[humblepie]

Originally Posted by TWA

Just buy prime. Chloramines = chlorine and ammonia. You break the chloramine bond and you're poisoning your fish with ammonia. API water conditioner breaks the bond but doesn't take care of ammonia. Prime does, ect ect I've poisoned my discus with ammonia using API water conditioner. Even your RO should have ammonia I believe ammonia passes through the membranes ect. I could be wrong, they've messed up water here in KC too with chloramines though.

That's what I'm trying to tell you. I've been using Prime or Ammolock (which is the API equivalent to Prime) and it doesn't matter. Both Prime and Ammolock break down chloramines to chlorine and ammonia. But it doesn't get rid of the ammonia, just turns it into not as toxic form. However, the water is so alkaline around here as well, thanks to all the limestone from the aquifer, that the ammonia doesn't stay non toxic for long. Top that off with the fact that there is SO MUCH chloramines, that when you use Prime the ammonia level is through the roof. To the point that even in non toxic state it is so high it becomes toxic due to the amount there.

Just for a test, I did a 1 to 10 ratio. I took 1 gallon of tap water. I treated it with Prime. I waited half an hour and tested it for ammonia. My API masters liquid test kit only registers ammonia up to 8ppm. The test went to that color with in second instead of 5 minutes showing it was still at 8ppm. I then added 10 gallons of RO/DI water to that 1 gallon. I retested. While it took a minute this time, the test kit still showed at 8ppm. It wasn't until I got to 20 gallons of RO/DI mixed with 1 gallon of this tap water that I was able to get it around .25 ppm. THAT'S A TON OF FREAKING AMMONIA.

It is too much! So much that is actually hampers bacteria growth. That is what I'm trying to point out. Test and see for yourself. Using the tap water around here, even treated with Prime, is going to take a tank forever to cycle if using straight tap water. If you have any fish the tap water is going to kill them even if you double dose the tank with Prime every day.

An no, RO/DI water I use doesn't have ammonia at all or chloramines. The activated carbon part of the filtration removes that. A good working RO/DI kit leaves you with pure water that is perfectly balanced at 7ph. It would have 0 TDS and no chems at all. If you are having ammonia in your water after passing through an RO/DI unit then it is defective or doesn't have all the filtration stages needed to make pure water.

[humblepie]

Tests I did earlier tonight with pictures.

First I tested my tap water with the test kit. I let the water sit for a good half hour to make sure it was settled. After 5 minutes the test showed it as ammonia free as shown in this pic.

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...r/IMG_2100.jpg

I also had another bowl of water I had sitting with Prime in it for half an hour. This was to break down the chloramines. I started the test on this and literally within 30 seconds it looked like this picture.

http://i225.photobucket.com/albums/d...r/IMG_2098.jpg

It was WAY darker than the 8ppm as you can see in the picture with the chart. I didn't have to wait anywhere close to 5 minutes for the test to complete.

I can also show you where I can try to dilute the tap water with RO/DI water that is chloramine and ammonia free. It really takes over 10 gallons of clean water per gallon of the tap water before the ammonia levels start dropping on the test chart below 8ppm.

Basically San Antonio SAWS tap water is massively toxic to fish right now and I would highly recommend no one use it for such. New tanks will not cycle with it and you'll kill any fish you stick in there.

[sampster5000]

I have lived here for 17 years and have used tap water in every tank (fresh, salt, planted, reef, etc) and have had no problems except algae which can easily be changed with a little bit of work. I only just recently decided to do 50/50 on my crystal red shrimp tank and it is doing great as well. We have a good water balance.