tap water

[joshl]

i have been using tap water in my tank now for about 3 months and have just now started ot really see a big difference in algae how much of a water change of ro water a week would i need to do to fix my system

its a 50 gallon tank

 

[wbrown]

you could change all the water, and still have enough phosphates in the sand bed to cause problems. Remove the phosphates and control other parameters and the algae will go away.

 

[kirru]

I did the same, 3 months of tap water then started to see algae growth like crazy switch to Ro/DI and still had problems (2 more months) then i upgraded to a 40br and went RO straight out and haven't had a real problem yet though. i'm sure my time is coming.

 

[dakota9]

If you're sswitching to RO, just do a healthy waterchange, throw some phosban in the sump and scrape the glass on occasion. The phosphates will eventually be taken care of.
Its very doable to have a reef system using tap, as long as you know whats in the tap water starting out, and take actions accordingly.
My last system was tap water, but most agreed it was one of the cleanest tanks they'd seen.

 

[joshl]

the only thing is i dont have a sump yet still working on that i have everthing hob right now

 

[dakota9]

joshl;318858 wrote: the only thing is i dont have a sump yet still working on that i have everthing hob right now

Phosban in the HOB is actually even better, as it will actively filter, rather than passively laying in the sump