Ocean water

[jsbradbury]

I live in San Diego, CA and at one of the local aquariums (Scripps Birch Aquarium www.aquarium.ucsd.edu) they have a spicket where you can get your own water from the ocean. I think it goes through some mediocre filtration first. Just wondering if anybody out there has this kind of option available and has tried it. What would the benefits be, if any? I imagine it wouldn't be as clean as RO/DI water, but isnt the goal to mimick the ocean anyway? Just wondering if this is a good idea or not- any feedback would be appreciated.

Scott

 

[Len]

Scripp water is fine according to all accounts I've heard. In LA, you can also get Catalina seawater; they freight it in from miles off shore and filter it before selling; it's worked fine for me as well.

 

[DK]

Gee, I can get some brackish PCB laden Hudson River water.

Want to trade???

 

[Anonymous]

Some people that use NSW steralize it before putting it in their tank. You bet that if I lived somewhere where it was available I would be using it instead of Instant Ocean.

 

[jsbradbury]

How would one go about steralizing it?

 

[jsbradbury]

I forgot the best part- its free!! hahaha

 

[Anonymous]

Don't quote me on this, but I think some people steralize it with chlorine bleach.

 

[Len]

I wouldn't bleach water. The way Catalina Water Co. sterilizers their water is through multiple passes through sediment scrubbers, carbon, and UV sterilizers (and possibly ozone too).

I personally wouldn't use any water I collect on my own unless it's collected from miles and miles off shore. The closer to land, the "dirtier" the water is. You'll have an incredibly tough time getting out the trace heavy metals and toxic compounds from waters of certain areas.

 

[Inno]

I second what Len has just said (unless of course you happen to live on an undisturbed island with prestine waters) plus adding to it that the cleaner ocean water isn't surface water either. You have to go at least a couple feet down to get to the good stuff, so I've heard.

 

[jsbradbury]

Thanks for the replies- Im new to this site and every time I get on here Im amazed at the amount of knowledge and friendliness of everybody on here. You guys rock.


Also, I think I'll just stick with the RO/DI water

 

[Anonymous]

You can bleach it, but be ready with plenty of sodium thiosulfate. At the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific, the water goes through GIGANTAHUGE sand filters (the pool-type design) and U.V., then mechanical and a final chemical filtration. For your purposes a good long exposure to U.V. and subsequent "polishing" through a Magnum diatom filter ought to do it.

 

[Len]

Hey SM, so common chlorine bleach is an acceptable practice? Learn something new everyday I would've thought bleach would be caustic and create numerous undesirable effects/byproducts beyond sodium thiosulfate

 

[jsbradbury]

Sounds like much more of a hassle. Ill stick with paying $1.32 for 5gal of the RO/DI water from my LFS and mixing it

 

[shr00m]

i couldnt handle having to go buy water everytime i needed a water change.. you really should think of getting a filter... im very lucky my city water contains no metals... and very low levels of phosphate, they only use chlorine here too so i just have to let it sit... all of my fish are very healthy and happy... i plan on getting a RO eventually just to be safe... but most places have there water tables online, i was very surprised when i looked at mine... one advantage to living in a place like arkansas i guess.