salt water aquarium question.. What kind of store-bought water can I add?
by Aquaboy on Sunday, February 28th, 2010 | 9 Comments
because of the heat I have to keep the lid open with a fan. 12 gallon nano reed aquarium.. The water level has been dipping and I need to have some water on-hand to keep the levels up so air doesn’t get into the filter system. Since salt is evaporating I need to put in fresh water. What water can I add to the tank without any minerals? Distilled water??
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Yes, distilled will be the best top off water for you
MM
.use distilled.anything without chlorine.
i hope that you are mixing the water in a bucket first and getting the saltinity to match the existing water…
distilled water has no minerals so if thats what you want…
Are you using your hydrometer?
The salt doesn’t really evaporate that much. It just gets stuck to the lid and the side of the tank, so knock it back into the water and just add de-chlorinated water if the water level gets low (just let faucet water sit out for a couple of days and the chlorine evaporates). And you can always get a hygrometer to make sure the salinity’s at the right level.
Salt doesn’t evaporate with the water, but it can “creep” on moist surfaces. You’re right though, that you need to use freshwater rather than mixed saltwater to top off your tank, otherwise you’ll increase your salinity.
Actually reverse osmosis water would be better than distilled for your tank. It doesn’t contain any nitrate, iron, or silica like your tap water may have, so it won’t contribute to algae or diatom growth, but it does contain some minor amounts of calcium and magnesium, which is used by fish and inverts, so you’d be replenishing these. You can buy this at Culligan self-derve dispensers at WalMart or Target (look for the Culligan dispensers, that’s how their water is treated). The cost in my area is $0.25 per gallon, but I’ve seen other users quote $0.33 (once you buy their refillable containers), so the price will vary depending on where you live.
I’ve been using RO water in my tanks (I have three) for both topping off, and mixing replacement water. One thing I’ve noticed that I’ll caution you about if you’ve never used distilled or RO water before is that since these lack many of the minerals (including carbonates, that act as a buffer) that are found in your tapwater, you may find it’s harder to maintain the proper pH using these.
You can buy an RO unit to use in your home, but these use far more water than they produce, even under ideal conditions. I still find it more economical to buy the water as I need it.
I agree with the distilled water also. Make sure you are feeding you reef tank. Using distilled water and the old salt is fine for the specific gravity of the water, but this will deplete nutrients for you reef inverts very quickly.
Salt never evaporates with water. Distilled water is the best choice if you don’t plan on spending too much money. Make sure to check the salinity with your hydrometer.
~ZTM
You should invest in a cooler, it will help during the summer, my tank gets about 85 on average and that seems to be okay for my tropical fish, but i would imagine other fish wouldn’t.
no distilled water, you dont know what metal the condensing coils were, use RO water, culligans availbale at walmart or taeget stores for 33 cents a gallon