Real Ocean Water? SanDiego, CA

[redpaulhus]

Bob Fenner mentions the Scripps water in his book, and I beleive the one drawback he mentions is buffering/alkalinity...

Also, I beleive the water at Scripps is run thru sandfilters first to clean out both phyto and zooplankton...

I used similar water at Florida Tech for aquaculture work without any problems, but those were fish not inverts...

I use water from Cape Cod, MA in a temperate marine tank (along with good ol Instant Ocean) but I'm keeping very hardy species that I collect from coastal bays and even marinas -- the water I collect is much healthier than the water I catch specimens in!

Martin Moe has some excellent info (I think its in "Systems and Inverts") on how to treat fresh seawater with bleach and then detoxify the bleach -- they had to do that in Florida when using raw seawater during an outbreak of redtide...that would get rid of your bacteria issue, but you might introduce too much phosphate, etc, in your water conditioner when denaturing the chlorine bleach...

 

[HARRISON]

You really should be able to use the water, I would just recommend that you let it age a bit. Even in the book "The Reef Aquarium" by Sprung and Delbeek they say you can use it. In fact they say that for the first time it is good to add it right away to get things started in your tank. After that I think you should be a little more careful, especially if you have corals established in there. I would probably use it to start a new tank, it is way cheaper in the long run.

 

[Gatortailale1]

Do the LFS that use the water run a UV sterilizer on their system as well? I suspect most do and that might be how they can get away with using it

 

[Anonymous]

Age the water two weeks in a dark,tightly closed container and the plankton and bacteria will die. At the end of two weeks you must syphon the dead plankton and bacteria off the bottom and add some baking soda to raise the Alk. It is perfect if you change water every two weeks or so.

Natural sea water is IMO the best option if it is feasible.

I wish you luck.

But I too am leary about adding coldwater plankton and bacteria.

 

[KanUCme]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Gatortailale:
<strong>Do the LFS that use the water run a UV sterilizer on their system as well? I suspect most do and that might be how they can get away with using it</strong><hr></blockquote>
they don't use UV, or ozone. They just have a huge skimmer...

 

[KanUCme]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by HARRISON:
<strong>You really should be able to use the water, I would just recommend that you let it age a bit.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Harrison you're a good man, is this where the tingling gets more intense... Lol.

 

[KanUCme]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by ANEMONEBUFF:
<strong>Age the water two weeks in a dark,tightly closed container and the plankton and bacteria will die. At the end of two weeks you must syphon the dead plankton and bacteria off the bottom and add some baking soda to raise the Alk.</strong><hr></blockquote>
This was brought to my attention so I purchased a dKH test and it took 11-12drops. I also purchsed KENT's expert series ProBuffer dKH. the bottle reads "enhanced professional buffering system for all marine aquariums with coealline accelerator. raises pH and adjusts alkalinity."

 

[KanUCme]

<blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by redpaulhus:
<strong>Also, I beleive the water at Scripps is run thru sandfilters first to clean out both phyto and zooplankton...</strong><hr></blockquote>
Yes it is only run thruough a sand filter. There was no redtide, no sewer drain problems, and no peligro signs, and I asked a person that worked there if the water was safe to use in an aquarium and they told me yes...