cycle a new tank use tap for cycle or not!!!!!!!!
- Thread starter Luck7773
- Start date
Everybody is telling you not to use tap water cuz of their bad experience. LISTEN to them!!!!!!! Being in this hobby is all about patience..... And there is no such thing as quick cycles. It took me 7 weeks to cycle my tank and I waited another 3 weeks just to make sure I was fully cycled. Well worth it.
My tap is 350ppm. My rodi is zero. I have read that when my TDS reads above one to replace my rodi filters. Moral of the story is that if just a couple ppm in my rodi can cause problems than no way Would I risk using tap water. You could be adding loads of phosphate and silicates that you would eventually have to remove later. And it would be much harder than just a water change because these elements would then be bound inside your aquarium, via algaes and such.
Never, never, ever use tap. One of the first things I learned. I bought my ro/di ASAP and never went back. My ppm was at 11 once after I neglected to change the filters on my ro/di and I had a heinous cyano outbreak. So you can see the statement holds true about changing the filters at even 1ppm. Can't imagine the disaster at 350ppm!
Quick ? for you guys.. Everyone sounds adamant about not using tap water to start a tank.. ( wish I had asked this question a year ago! ) Of course.. I did.. and have had gha issues that won't cease, been trying everything! Could I have seriously impaired my levels from the get go? as in.. the sand bed and rock holding phospahates? Do wc constantly.. careful feeding and rodi wc eve since start up.. wondering if it's because of my start up? TIA
Unless you're a tank installer that's behind on a deadline or something, I wouldn't even be worrying about a "quick", cycle. The longer you have your tank established before you add anything to it the better. With a tank the size of yours, you should be able to put a few fish with no I'll side effects so at least there's some movement in there. Just let it sit for a while man. I've known too many people that rushed their cycling period and added tons of stuff to their tanks only to lose everything because their systems couldn't handle the load yet.
I didn't cook my rock to get bound phosphate out and had gha problem for a couple months. Even with rodi. I used a diy gfo reactor and a bh100 reef octopus skimmer and it took care of it in A few months time. I also rarely feed corals and have a light bioload. I did not use a clean up crew to solve my algae. It is a nutrient issue.
