Real Ocean Water? SanDiego, CA

[KanUCme]

I was told from some reputable people that they use water from the Scripps Pier. It is FREE and there is a hose you bring cointainers, you fill, and it's yours. This person uses the water in his store, and uses it at home, and for all his clients. Everything in his store looks nice. I was coinsidering this, as my waterchanging solution. Where I live my water is high in phosphates and minerals. I know this because of the excessive hair algae problem that never ends. I have no bio balls, I bought new lights, I don't feed that much, I pull the algae out, I have a skimmer, I have hermits, snails, and the lot. I don't want to buy a RO/DI unit as it appears to be problematic with flooding and I have no place to put one. The $200+ dollar investment is not as option at this time. I have some clean empty rubbermaid 55gal trash cans, and a pick-up truck. It would cost me about $10 in gas to goto the pier and back. On the other had it would cost me about $40 in salt each time I would want to make an equal amount of water. So each time I would save about $30. My questions are: <ul type="square">[*]anyone else use this water? [*]are there any benifits? [*]what are some problems? [*]what would you do in my situation? [/list] all comments, opinions, would be greatly appreciated. I was planning on going down there today if I could get another opinion. I have two for it and one against it.

 

[danmhippo]

I would worry about coldwater zooplankton and phytoplankton die in your warm water tank and cause additional nutrient input, not to mention all those junks in the water of Southern California.

I am getting Saltwater from my LFS, and he is using RO mixed with salt mixes. That cost me about less than a dollar a gallon.

 

[monkeyboy]

Well, if that's all he's using in the store, it is probably somewhat safe to use. danmhippo is right though, that plankton is probably going to die, you should figure out some way to filter it, especially if you are going to have that 55g of water sitting around waiting for you to do water changes. In the process, the life in it will die and you'll have a problem. It seems like a good way to pull off some free w/c's, but you still haven't addressed the problem of top-off, can't use saltwater for that!

FYI, flooding from r/o units is the fault of the operator, you forget about it, you flood. A cost effective way to get r/o is to pick up a kent 10gpd bare bones unit. If you use that trash can, it will take more than 5 days to have a flood. These units are very cheap, purify the water pretty good (much much cleaner than tap) Now, if you can only find a place to put it...

 

[newreefman1]

Almost every LFS that I know of with the exception of tri city tropical in vista uses this water.

You need to make sure to stay away and few days after a rainy day/storms and pay attention to closed beaches.

From what I understand, the water is run through a large sand filter(which you can see as you fill em up).

Ive used it as have a ton of local reefers. Its right off that scenic drive that starts just past the aquarium...

I prefer myself to mix salt water or buy premixed from LFS...But I was curing some live rock and needed some cheap saltwater...so I made the drive down...and picked up abotu 20 gallons.

=-)
HTH

 

[kennethstowell]

ive used scripps on and off for about six years ,no complaints, i heard about it from ron at octapuss garden, lots of local merchants use it to transport fish also, only problem i ever had was the weight of the 55 gal. , 55 x8lbs, bringing it in the house was a pain, but if your on a budjet, like i was at the time ,you deal with it

 

[KanUCme]

thanks everyone... I tested the water. <ul type="square">[*]PH 8.2 [*]Ammo 0 [*]Nitrite 0 [*]Nitrate 0 [*]KH 12drops or 120 mg/L [/list] ...this is basically the exact measurements of my aquarium. I am not storing it. I only got about 30gallons, and will do a 20% water change tomarrow in the daylight. The only concern was the hardness, which was brought to my attention by Chris at VetsPets, but I did a test and it was a OK.
_Nick

 

[toptank]

I know of a lot of reefer that use that water as I did for about 6 months then one day I did a water change and about 8 hrs later my Xenia crashed and contaminated my water and I lost 1/2 my SPS and a bunch of clams.

Jason, one of our members in our club has been using it for years and last month he did a water change and his tank crashed. Wasn't after it rained, nor was beaches closed. Just some bad water with some bacteria we suspect.

I know I went back to mixing my own water as I sure he has too. FREE isn't always the best way to go IMO and IME.

I know other have never had any problem with that water but it only takes onetime.

Barry

[ January 18, 2002: Message edited by: toptank ]</p>

 

[KanUCme]

true. Is there anyway to check for the bacteria? Could I possibly boil the water then let it cool before adding it?

 

[Ben1]

is this what you want?

http://www.esvco.com/prod20.htm

 

[KanUCme]

Ya, holy sheet! That is one hella expesive test, but I guess it could be very cheaper then replacing everything in the aquarium. However it is too late, I have added the water. About 30gallons of the Scripps Pier water. The water was a little bit cool but everything looks fine as of now. I started the water change with the lights off, and have just turned them on after completing the water change. I will post the tank paramter test results tomarrow.

 

[reefcam]

If you can and have the resource, setup a large tank with a UV and skimmer to clean the water. Put your fresh sea water in the tank and let it circulate through the UV and skimmer for about 3 - 5 days before adding it to your tank. And if you can, run the water through some floss filters to filter out large particles. I wish we had the resource here. I know up in Seattle Aquarium, you can by sea water there for your fish tank.

 

[KanUCme]

If I had the resources to do that, or the money I would mix my own water, but I don't and this is my new alternative to forking over the dough for the RO/DI unit, a UV, or another skimmer. The new water and my tank water matched on the ph, hardness, and Nitriate, Nitrate, Ammo. All of my corals are open larger then they ever have, and my fish and inverts are all alive and more active. I think that this water change was for the best.

 

[jetor]

I used/use Scripps water with no problems (so far)and as said before I have seen numerous LFS's out there filling up their trailer containers.

 

[HARRISON]

I am with Barry on this one. I have heard of stories too. I like to mix mine to be safe. If you are going to use the ocean water I have heard that it is best to let it age for a couple weeks to let the die off happen and not effect your tank. There are lots of people using it so it must work for the most part, but it only really takes once for you to lose everything.

 

[KanUCme]

Well it's the day after and here are the reuslts: <ul type="square">[*]PH 8.3 [*]ammonia 0 [*]nitrite 0 [*]nitrate 0 [*]dKH 110 [*]Temp 76 [*]SG 1.024 [/list] Everything is alive, the corals are opened bigger then ever, the fish are active and more colorful, and the inverts are intact. So mission accomplished. Will have to wait till the end of the month to see if this was a good choice or not...

 

[HARRISON]

You know when your a little kid and you stick your finger in the wall plug and nothing happens? Then you try to get in a little further and feel the tingle... Then a little more and a little more tingle. The you push a little more and you get a little buzz on the tip of your finger and you smile cause you know its wrong but its fun...The you dig your toes into the carpet and shove your tiny little finger in till you get knocked back on your butt and you scream bloody murder and your mom finds out what happened and if the shock wasn't enough she swats you and chastises you. (insult to injury).

I'd say your messing with the tingle right now.

(yeah, like I am the only one that tried this...)

 

[KanUCme]

actually I never tried that.... lol!

 

[srbayless]

Howdy,

I don't use the scripps water, but I do use the Catalina brand of saltwarer. This is water they collect from the seaside of Catalina Island, and then filter. By the time it arrives at your LFS, it is clean and free of plankton.

My LFS sells it for $.50 per gallon, and it's only $.30 at Jeff's exotic fish. Way cheaper than getting a RO/DI and buying salt mix. If I had a really large tank, it might be worth the money to buy a RO/DI.

I would be leary of the Scripps water because it has only been sand filtered. The sand only filters out plankton and other small critters, it won't filter out bacteria or other pathogens.

Good luck,

Scott.

 

[KanUCme]

unfourtanatley(That's a hard word) my LFS doesn't sell water, but if a few did, it prob would just be scripps they are selling. I can always buy sea salt mix, but wanted the quickest easyest method that so far has proven effective.

 

[scavdog]

I'm using water from outside Boston Harbor on my 54 AGA. Its been almost 2 months no problems at all. I filter the wate in the dark with carbon for a week or so. At some point I will incorporate Ozone as well.
I say go for it.