NYC tap water, no skimmer, Nano!

[Matorral]

6 month so far using once a week NYC tap (10-20%) water changes and the tank is looking great. Great coral growth, no algae in my LR, 0 nitrates 0 phosphates, even fragging some of the fastest growing coral.

My water changes circulate for 24h with the salt before adding it to aquarium, I also use once every 2 month small amounts of charcoal and there is chaeto algae growing in the back chamber of my nano with a homedepo light. No skimmer, no Calcium or buffer additives. Just water changes once a week. My lighting is compact flourescent (came with the tank which is a JBJ 24 g Nano cube dx) which run for 10 hour period and my homedepot chaeto light runs 12 hours a day with timers. Temperature ranges from 78-82F, there is no need for chiller, in the summer I turn on the AC if is too hot. I feed once a day a small amount of forzen brine shrimp for my only fish (yellow clown goby). There is also a cleaning crew (hermits, shrimps and snails) that take care of the algae.

I think my success is due to the fact that I only have 1 small yellow clown goby, so there is not lot of nutrient input. Also my coral is mainly softies (zoas, palys, nephteas and shrooms and one frogspawn and one monte cap) which are hardy and dont require perfect Calcium and trace element levels.

This far my original goal of making a cheap and easy to mantain tank has been acomplished.

here come some pics of the evolution of my tank is the first 6 months

 

[Matorral]

set up

home depot light and first batch of LR

 

[Matorral]

4 weeks

some more live rock with clove polyps

 

[Matorral]

4 months

some more coral, and cleaning crew

 

[Matorral]

6 months

more coral and fish, finally!

 

[Matorral]

If you want to see my tank thread with more details, and the problems I had..
http://www.manhattanreefs.com/forum/tank-threads/42102-24-g-nano-cube-dx.html

 

[ecvernon]

wow you have some good tap water. my tap water is 75 ppm of dissolve solids. and my phosphate level is 1.86 ppm

 

[Matorral]

I dont know the ppm of Bronx water, but phosphates are near 0.

 

[ecvernon]

hey if it aint broke don't fix it tank looks cool

 

[JLAudio]

cool thread, maybe we can do this process alittle easier, and make more of it than we have to

 

[tosiek]

JL, check the posts both on here and RC about people saying they have tons of algae then find out its because they used tap water. Then check and see how many posts you see with successful tap water reef tanks.

Also, not all tap water in the city is created equal. They can range from 35 to 80. I think ive seen one post saying their TDS read 5. Matorral did you ever test your incoming TDS? I wouldn't be surprised if the building used some sort of filtration or something either.

Anyways, Kudo's to you man and congrats on successfully having an algae free tank with tap water! Hope it stays this way. But people need to realize that this kind of success using faucet water in a reef tank is really low.

What ever happened to that mandarin? And your RO unit should have came with instructions that details how to link up the incoming and drain. =0) It takes no more than 10 mins to set up.

 

[muntai]

while is true that having no fish so hardly any bio load; i'm still very surprise how clean your tank looks after 4 months n with nice coraline algea growth on rocks n the back. 6 months is still young for a reef tank. keep up the good work.

 

[tosiek]

Also, on a side note after reading your post, The coral that died was im guessing your second cycle that probably was caused by adding in some dead cheato without realizing or shocking your system with new bacteria from whatever was on/with the cheato (extra bacteria to a settled system, food gets eaten up, bacteria starve, die and create ammonia). Either way it was def not from adding too much but rather adding something bad. Plus this is a teensy system and stuff swings quick and the bio filter set up after 2 months is barely scratching what it would be in 2 months in a system of 100+ gallons. It was just the tank readjusting itself.

And bioload (IE your one fish theory) should play no part in problems that arise with using tap water except elevated Po4 levels. The niusance algae usually starts because of an influx of dissolved solids from the water itself. More food for bacteria to feed on. Your not not seeing the side effects people usually see from using tap water because your bioload is low, its because your water is better than people are assuming.

 

[jhale]

NYC tap water has changed for the worse this past month!
While it's been 40-50 TDS for as a long as I have been checking TDS, this past month it jumped to 170-220!

Be careful with your tap water tank, it might have worked in the past but be aware our water quality has changed

 

[tosiek]

They are running new pipes uptown somewhere Jhale, all that stuff flushes back downtown. I just changed my RO filters and in 2 weeks they were crammed with red stuff and gook. DI was green one day and the next brown.

BTW, I say we should all go to Matorrals house for free filtered quality water. Who's with me?

 

[ecvernon]

They are running new pipes uptown somewhere Jhale, all that stuff flushes back downtown. I just changed my RO filters and in 2 weeks they were crammed with red stuff and gook. DI was green one day and the next brown.

BTW, I say we should all go to Matorrals house for free filtered quality water. Who's with me?

lol yea i should throw out my ro/di and get 0 phosphate water from Matorrals house

 

[jhale]

They are running new pipes uptown somewhere Jhale, all that stuff flushes back downtown. I just changed my RO filters and in 2 weeks they were crammed with red stuff and gook. DI was green one day and the next brown.

BTW, I say we should all go to Matorrals house for free filtered quality water. Who's with me?

yep I'm bringing my 55 gallon drum

that pipe change is killing me, I used to give the animals brita filtered water, now I have to buy them poland spring. may water is coming out gray

 

[Matorral]

All of you are more than welcome to come and take some water from my building. Ill let you use my old ladies shopping cart so you can bring it down easily. Tosiek: I have never measure the TDS is my water, but ill ask the super if they have some sort of filtration in the building. I also know that near were I leave they have a water tratment plant (in van courtland park) maybe that could be a reason why my phosphates are 0. Could the algae (chaeto) that im groing in the back could be taking cae of excess phosphates from the tap water? Yes my Mandarin was a fast RIP, that was the first fish I added to my tank, after buying it I saw how many people have had the same problem. The first time I introduced the chaeto I almost though that everything would die, but luckily the coral came back, you can see how much wave hand polyps I had before the tank crashed, now its growing back again.

Thanks for all your opinions. Ill put a new thread when my tank is a year old, to see how lucky im with the NYC tap water.

 

[tosiek]

Try to get a TDS as they are cheap or find someone near you willing to test it with theirs. Really curious on your incoming TDS from your faucet and im sure everyone else is also. Im sure the water treatment plant has something to do with your water quality. The high TDS people get is mainly because the water is treated upstate/bronx and then travels 100's of miles sometimes through pipes that have been around for 50+ years. If you have ever removed piping after a year or two's worth of use and seen the buildup/corrosion in that time period you can only imagine the amount of buildup and sediment in the pipes on the city's water lines. Plus cracks and breaks in the water lines also help leach organics and minerals into the water.

 

[fernandokng]

That's so far really good news! Only time will tell though.

In a brand new tank, 6 months in, phosphates are being absorbed by the rocks and sand. Once the rocks/sand are fully saturated, that is when equilibrium has been reached and you will see your phosphate rise and algae to start to grow.

Keeps us posted!