Actual saltwater VS Mixed saltwater

Hello everyone

I'm new to the hobby as well as this community, but would like to get some opinions on info. I live 5 mins from the Northern Atlantic in Florida and am wondering what the pros and cons are for using actual Ocean water for water changes versus using instant ocean salt and ro water. Any reference or opinions are highly appreciated.

Have a great one.

 

my main concern with this would be the possible parasites and pests you might involuntarily introduce to your tank this way. but take a sample of the sea water and test it. see what comes up, it would be interesting

 

Pros: Cheaper than salt mix if you do not have to expend a lot of money on gas collecting it.

Cons: Possible contaminates
Possible parasites

Pros of mix: Quality control for parameters.
Rarely if ever any contaminates.
Ease of use


I have done it both ways. The water I used came from a line used by a marine lab, also by a company that collect the water far off shore.


Welcome to 3reef.

 

The sea around Jax/St.Augustine/St.Johns River is really bad. Some of the worse I've ever seen.

Any more red tide lately? Red tide was constant at Jax Beach when I lived there in '07.

Seawater contains chemicals and microbes and their cysts that will eventually cause you problems.

Synthetic seawater is the way to go.

 

Great advice already.

My first SW tank, was years ago when I live in Florida, in Boynton Beach.

All my livestock was hand caught (NOT Hooks) with slurp guns and nets, etc.

I lived just down the street from a short ICW inlet.

ON incoming tides, you could see the bottom of the inlet ~20 ft deep!
I would use a 5G bucket on a rope, and collect the water into a few large coolers for my initial water, and my WC's.

That was years ago, and I gave it away when I moved back to TX.

You have the pros and cons posted above.

Happy Reefing!

 

I live in Jax and the water isn't that clear here, not to mention the shores are natural skimmers of the ocean. Any water collected on a beach has high nutrients.

 

What about Catalina water?

 

You would have to travel out about 20 - 30 miles, maybe more to even get the best water to use. I would try and get a 1 micron sock and filter the heck out of it but that's allot of work. But as stated lots of pros and cons have been listed above for you.

 

Thanks

I want to thank you all for the opinions. I will stick with mixed water as it seems safer but might set up a small tank and use strictly ocean water to see what happens. This hobby always has ?'s to answer I guess. Again thanks for all the advice.


Happy reefing to you all

 

red tides

I haven't heard of many red tides in the last few years here or around jax whiskeytango. Which is a good thing. Although my thought on the sea water was to bring it in from 4 mile reef where we fish quite regularly. Well see, I believe I'll try a tank w/ pure sea water on a few damsels and I'll keep my findings posted.


Happy reefing