Cycling live rock--non r/o water

[Bontrager]

Is it OK to cycle live rock in regular tap water and salinity just using de clor to remove the chlorine ( is this necessary). Prefer not to waste distilled or R/O water while the rock cures.

Thank you.

[Playa-1]

It can be done but it's not a good idea. You will be introducing impurities from the tap to be saturated into the liverock and they have the potential to cause you grief later on. You can risk it if you want to but considering the expense, time and effort of setting up one of these tanks, It's not a risk I would be willing to take.

[Bontrager]

Thank you, I will go with r/o or distilled water.

[1DeR9_3Hy]

This is a good point (that i just learned hard myself).

What you put into your rock now, and tank later will always be there until you either tear it down or replace all your sand/live rock.

For a month or two my ro/di was putting out 10-15 tds, but i kept using it because the tank looked fine and the corals kept growing.

Then one day i started to lose lps polyps, which prompted me to do some tests...which is how i found out my tank had 100+ Nitrate reading. As far as i can tell (becuase nothing had changed, just the water had increased TDS), whatever was in the water must have been an organic substance or nitrates themselves...my sand bed soaked up all that stuff and no matter how many water changes i did or how many things i tried to reduce my nitrates nothing worked.

Just this past weekend i removed all the sand, and replaced it. I then did a 50% water change and for the first time i could see a lower nitrate reading (25-50).

Sand beds and rock are like sponges in that they absorb things that you would not initially think about...then release it slowly later on when things go wrong.

What my point?

Only put in top notch water and keep track of the water. It is early enough on for you that you can save yourself a ton of work later on. Id suggest buying a TDS meter ($15 on ebay), and test the water yourself...dont take anyones word for it. I really can not stress this enough....

[TBHockey]

I agree with 1Der, i have been using RO/DI water since i put my 210 up about 6 months ago, but didn't have the $$ for a TDS Meter, just bought one and i was at about 3ppm, so i went and bought new filters and DI Resin, i wasn't how high is safe on the PPM and didn't want to take a chance.

to the OP though, i did have a 55 Gallon tank that i used Tap water in the initial setup, i ended up killing that tank because of all the issues that i attribute to the Tap Water, and to be safe i baked the Rock in new Saltwater from RO/DI for 6 to 8 weeks before even putting in my 210, there may still be some remnants of my mistake but my 210 is awesome but for the $$$ up front you will save yourself a ton of work and $$$ on the back end.

[rgonzalez]

I'll have to disagree here. I setup my 125 and 180 (both were LPS, Reef tank, with inverts, fish, LR) tank using tap water and some PRIME; and never encountered any problems whatsoever. I only used tap water to set it up, and then used RO/DI water going forward.

No maybe it was because in my part of the country the tap water is not as bad as other parts. But just my experience.

[stubby 58]

I'll have to disagree here. I setup my 125 and 180 (both were LPS, Reef tank, with inverts, fish, LR) tank using tap water and some PRIME; and never encountered any problems whatsoever. I only used tap water to set it up, and then used RO/DI water going forward.

No maybe it was because in my part of the country the tap water is not as bad as other parts. But just my experience.

What is your TDS on your local tap ,may be low , but as a general rule it ill not work for most and as stated your rock and sand bed a like sponges . I would not chance it my self . stubby

[1DeR9_3Hy]

I'll have to disagree here. I setup my 125 and 180 (both were LPS, Reef tank, with inverts, fish, LR) tank using tap water and some PRIME; and never encountered any problems whatsoever. I only used tap water to set it up, and then used RO/DI water going forward.

No maybe it was because in my part of the country the tap water is not as bad as other parts. But just my experience.

You are the rare exception to the rule. There was atleast 2 other occurrences that i can remember reading about in the past 3 years that people did this and it did not harm there tanks.

Also, of those 3 one of them said they only kept fish/soft corals and they did not know how nems or sps would fare in there system. So saying a tank is perfectly fine with tap water is a very subjective thing. It may be fine for you, but it may not be fine for someone else with different goals.

What is your TDS on your local tap ,may be low , but as a general rule it ill not work for most and as stated your rock and sand bed a like sponges . I would not chance it my self . stubby

To add to this, TDS measures solids. It does not tell us what the solids are. Would you want 1 TDS of uranium in your water? :jester:

[rgonzalez]

I didn't say tap water is perfectly fine. I said, for me, in my experience, it worked out. Based on many peoples comments, it is not recommended, but it worked for me.

I should play the lottery!

[lordofthereef]

The amount of RO water "wasted" in cycling your rocks will be marginal compared to the potential headache of using tap water... even if everything is fine now, the rock may absorb all kinds of garbage and leech it out in the future. This is a case of "better safe than sorry" IMO.

[wooden_reefer]

Is it OK to cycle live rock in regular tap water and salinity just using de clor to remove the chlorine ( is this necessary). Prefer not to waste distilled or R/O water while the rock cures.

Thank you.

If you are not going to do a 99% water change after cycling, why is this a question, separate from regular maintenance?

If you are going to do a 99% water change, what is the harm?

[Calif-Reef]

If you use tap water it is not "IF" you will have problems but "WHEN"
I used nothing but tap water in my 300 gal reef. Did good for 5 years than it crashed. The year before it crashes I would have argued until the moon turned blue that tap water was alright.