Mistake

[suprazx]

It is to late but I have put tap water into a 95 gal tank and it has been up and running for 3 weeks. I finally found out that it is bad to add tap water into the tank and ordered an RO unit. Is there anyway to get the impurities out of the water, for example have water changes till most of the water in the tank is water from the RO unit? I dont want an algae out break later or any other problems down the road
.

150 wet/dry
mtc skimmer
4 damsels
90lbs of fiji rocks
100lb live sand

 

[meschaefer]

just do a couple of large water changes when you first get the unit, and then routine water changes thereafterr.

 

[saltycreefer]

Not that big of a deal. You can put a poly filter and some carbon in your sump to help clean the water. I usually use tapwater for first fill on my tanks. I have to set up a 650gal end of the week and believe me I'm not going to use RO to do that. What I will do is put a few poly filters , carbon , purigen & phosphate remover in the sump. I will also keep the lighting down to a minimum for the first couple of weeks to avoid an algae bloom.

 

[alistair]

As stated above .... regular RO/DI water changes will eventually dilute the tap water tds.

 

[Chiefmcfuz]

Run some phosphate remover in a reactor or a mesh bag as well to remove any phos from the tap water.

 

[suprazx]

I bought the seachem pinnacle RO unit without DI. Is it still any good without the DI feature, or have I just wasted my time and money

 

[meschaefer]

THe DI filter is important, as there are a number of compounds that are better removed by DI than RO alone. That being said, RO water is a whole lot better than Tap.

Furthermore, a DI filter is very easy to add onto an existing RO unit. There are many stand alone DI filters that can be run inline with the RO unit. The price is not that bad too, about $35.

LOOK HERE

 

[Aqua Pro Builder]

Not that big of a deal.

Agreed. In the long run, it's nothing for just one tank of tap water as long as you keep the new water with RO/DI. However, a couple large water change, now, with RO/DI would be good in the short term. Just pretend that you had over fed the tank for one time.

 

[suprazx]

Thanks for all the replies. You've helped me a lot

 

[Awibrandy]

Not that huge of a mistake. I ran my tanks with tap water for years. Battled algea, and just this past Feb. made the switch. Check out my "Before & After threads", you'll see the difference. In Feb. during the switch I went with half the original tap water from the old tank, and finished filling with RO/DI with continues routine weekly w/c. Only algea I have is on the rear glass, and diatoms on the front & side glass.