Quick Question

[Owais]

This may sound stupid, but I get my saltwater from the beach and I have a 80g tank so what is the best way to fill the tank and remove water ?

 

[monty]

This may sound stupid, but I get my saltwater from the beach and I have a 80g tank so what is the best way to fill the tank and remove water ?

I suppose that depends on how far you are from the beach, and how big a bucket you can carry...

Just to make sure, though, you know that having fresh seawater can't substitute for cycling the tank for 3 months, except in a flow-through system, right?

 

[Owais]

Just to make sure, though, you know that having fresh seawater can't substitute for cycling the tank for 3 months

ehm, what do you mean? I know that I have to cycle it for 3 months, but what about when I do a water change ?

 

[monty]

ehm, what do you mean? I know that I have to cycle it for 3 months, but what about when I do a water change ?

It should be fine for water changes, I just wanted to check; we occasionally get people who just dump some seawater into their tanks, and say "oh, I thought since it was real seawater I didn't need to do all that cycling" or "since I have all the salt water I want, I'll just do a water change every day instead of cycling," and it generally works out badly.

Another thing that's not always obvious is that when the water level goes down from evaporation, you want to top off with fresh water, since the salt doesn't evaporate... but for water changes, of course, you want salt water, since you're removing and replacing.

 

[Owais]

Another thing that's not always obvious is that when the water level goes down from evaporation, you want to top off with fresh water, since the salt doesn't evaporate... but for water changes, of course, you want salt water, since you're removing and replacing.

Hey man really thanks for everything. Yeah the guy in the LFS said the same thing but by fresh water you mean like tap water right ?

 

[Animal Mother]

Not tap water. Tap water is treated with all sorts of chemicals to make it safe to drink. RO/DI water, purified.

 

[Owais]

Not tap water. Tap water is treated with all sorts of chemicals to make it safe to drink.

Hmm, well in my country the water is not safe to drink so it probably doesnt have chemicals because when I got my tank the marine specialist guy filled like 1/3rd of my tank with salt water and the rest with tap water. His water was very salty so he filled the rest with tap water to level the salt. So I think its safe to use tap water?

 

[Owais]

mistake

 

[Joe-Ceph]

...so what is the best way to fill the tank and remove water ?

I get fresh (filtered) water for my 50 gallon octopus tank from a local public aquarium (Scripps in San Diego). The basic procedure for doing a water change is:
1) Fill containers with water and bring home.
2) Use a hose to siphon 15% of the water out of the tank. Ideally you can siphon it directly into a drain, or into containers that you can easily pour down the drain.
3) Position the container(s) of new water so that they are higher than the tank (I use a step stool on top of a patio table.
4) Siphon the new water into the tank (the same amount that you removed)


Here are some details and advice about some of the steps above:
Step 1)
a) Use sturdy closable containers that won't slop water during transport. The best ones will have a handle, a large opening, with a cap, to pour out of, and a small opening, with a cap, to allow air to come in when you are pouring. Places that sell camping gear usually sell 5 gallon plastic water jugs that fit this description.
b) Water weighs about 8 lbs per gallon. Don't get jugs that will be too heavy to handle, or so small that you need too many of them. If you're doing 12% water changes, you'll need to transport 10 gallons of water, so two 5 gallon jugs should be fine.
c) you may need a cart to help you move all the water jugs to/from a vehicle.

Step 2) Sipon out of tank
a) Clear vinyl hose (tibing) works best because you can see where the water is. If you use garden hose, be sure to cut off the brass metal hardware on each end so that it can't contaminate your tank (brass contains copper).
b) You may want to vacumm the substratae in your tank when you siphon water out (I do).
c) If you will use two juggs to transport new water to your tank, you may want to buy 4 juggs total, so that you can siphon the old water into the same sized containers, and ensure that you remove just the right amount of water. I happened to already own 4 five gallon juggs, so I do it this way.

Steps 3 and 4) Put new water in tank.
a) I don't recommend trying to just pour 5 gallon juggs of water into your tank because of splashing and spilling. Use a siphon (which requires that you place the new water on a platform that is higher than the top of your tank) or use a pump to get the new water from the juggs into the tank.
b) if you siphon, be careful about spilling, and make sure that the heavy juggs can't fall off of whatever platform they are on. Also, if you can't safely lift and place the juggs up on the high platform, then use a pump.

 

[Tintenfisch]

Well, if your tap water isn't safe to drink, it's probably not that nice for animals to live in either. Interesting that your LFS person used it though.