river water

You don't "need" the random contaminants from your local river/drinking water; nitrates, phosphates and silicates aren't going to do anything other than cause algae issues, regardless of whether the tank is FW or SW. Phosphates and nitrates, in particular, are the primary constituents of plant fertilizer (ever seen the four-quadrant NPK logo with numbers? two of those quadrants describe nitrate and phosphate levels, typically much higher than K). No river source is going to be steady in these levels because of environmental conditions, and on any given day can have 100 times the amount seen on the average day, without warning.

That doesn't even consider any industrial sewage that could be present in the water on a given day (your nearest Walmart that carries fertilizer, will wreak havoc on your tank if there's a storm), issues with acid rain, or straight up chemicals like horomones, antibacterial agents, and various pharmaceuticals like the ones recently found to be causing mutations of wildlife in the Potomac River (D.C.) and seemingly-pristine areas (at least relative to D.C.) like Wisconsin.

You need something in the water, which should be added later. Kent, in particular, makes a Discus conditioner and a Cichild conditioner. Tetra makes one for "blackwater" fish like discus and tetras. Seachem actually makes one specific to Tanganyika cichilds, and another for Victora/Malawi cichilds.

Anyway, the point is, there's nothing in tap water necessary for even the most demanding FW tank types that isn't available elsewhere, and tap water largely carries the same risk whether you're running SW FO/FOWLR or FW.

 

Chloramines are just as bad as chlorine, and sit in the water for much longer periods, like a week. Never use straight tap water without a conditioner.

 

ditto been there ive found clorine in my fw storage for 2 weeks and i have a powerhead and an air stone in the can stresscoat is your friend now im starting to do 20gal rodi and 10 gal tap with stress coat for the freshwater tank dose the trick about 2 tds chcilids like it thay almost seem dorment with streaight rodi but maybee ill try doseing like a couple post back i hate this brown algae i get in the fw tank once and a wile

 

Try RODI, and add a cichild buffer mix.

 

I've never heard of those special conditioners, but my main point was you need something in there besides pure water which tap water does have. Of course tap also has things you don't too though.

I've always used tap and never had any algae problems either (I've never had to clean the inside of the glass and never seen it on anything at all, even with 12+ light cycles, but I've always had a plecos in any freshwater tank as well. It could also have been partly that I never added anything from the wild, like I did live rock for saltwater.

 

Plecos eat a huge amount of algae, plus the lower variety of algae species in FW tanks, helps them out quite a bit. There aren't any micros you'll find in a typical FW that they won't eat, unlike a SW, where any given tank has at least 30 different kinds of micro in large quantity and each CUC species may only eat a few of them.

 

wow do do have one. but i think ill just use tap. were inthe midwest so farms are every were.

 

ya i wasent going to be looking for a pleco anytime soon. i was going for a tank with fish from around here. i might add one sonner or later though.

and with the rodi water vs. tap im going to side with RODI because i have seen to many tanks were you can even see into the tank becuse of everything you get with tap. even a condtioner will not solve it. you will always get somthing with algae in your tank if you are using tap.