cyano

While reading and posting a response to a fellow reefer I got off on this topic and rather than typing all this up on a post I figured I would share my knowledge on this subject in a blog rather than a response post. To give everyone a little background I am former US Air Force and my job consisted of plumbing, natural gas, fire systems, maintenance and new installations, as well as water purification. I worked in this particular career field for 6 years before leaving the military to spend more time with my family and moving on to a new chapter in my life. This by no means is a high horse but this is information pertinent to our hobby that I would like to pass on to those who may not know.

Depending on where you live the actual water source may not be the best for aquarium inhabitants anyway with the differences in minerals that can be present. In Texas for instance they have done so much drilling for oil in a lot of the state and they left the rods in the ground and contaminated the ground water sources so now they are having to get water purified from stale lakes instead of from under the ground. If you live elsewhere and you go to Texas you may get a less palatable taste from your faucet and it tends to have a stale taste. In my area the water comes from the ground but it tends to have a high calcium content from the rock that filters the water.

Lastly for those people that may not know people who say they get phosphates in their tap water are absolutely correct and you should understand that phosphate is dosed into the water system just as chlorine, ph buffer, and fluoride are. Phosphates are dosed to coat the inside of water pipes to help aide in the prevention of corrosion but it is not a requirement so if they run out it may not be replenished and dosed again for quite some time BUT remember it's job is to coat pipes so it will continue to linger for a while. Fluoride is mandatory to dose for strengthening your teeth but it is lethal is larger doses and I assume the small doses that we tolerate in our drinking water is doing nothing good for our livestock. PH is buffed up or down depending on the water source I myself have used Soda Ash to buff the ph in our tap water which is also an ingredient in the embalming process.

The products that are designed to make water safe by removing the chlorine if you have to use it (we all have) make sure to find the ones that neutralize chlorine and chloride not just chlorine. It is important to remember that these products do nothing for the other chemicals and compounds in your water. It will say on the side of the bottle that it neutralizes chloride as well so make sure you know what you are buying.

So please invest in a water purification system for your tank inhabitants (your livestock that rely on you to live will love you for it)