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Why does fresh water evaporate faster then salt-water?

... saltwater... tank... RO... water...?... 10pts...?...?

  • can someone explain to me how do i switch from tap water to RO water. i have heard a lot of good things about RO water and finally found a fish shop that sells it for 50cents a gallon. but my only concern is that this water is so clean that not only it has 0 ammonia, nitrite, nitrate... but it also has no calcium, ph, dkh... so will i have to add all that by buying the supplements? (if so: what kind of supplements/add before i pour the water into the tank) because right now my tank is doing very good on tap water (with live rock and all that good stuff) but one bad thing: my tap water has high nitrates (40) (tank is been set up for 2weeks now) no fish or corals yet. im planning to do a 50% water change with the new RO water i purchased. (obviously mix it with salt first) is that good bad ? any tips hints about the RO water will be great. so please as you can see im new to this if you can help me out i would really appreciate it. thank you.

  • Answer:

    A quality salt mix will provide all of the necessary calcium, trace elements, etc in the mix so you will not have too add it all using supplements. Just add the salt mix to the RO water, use a small pump to circulate it and dissolve everything(let it mix for at least 24 hours before testing), test, adjust if necessary and it is ready for use. Your tank is still cycling. A 50% water change may not be necessary right now unless you are having a massive ammonia spike and / or lots of die off on the live rock. Once the tank is completely cycled, you could then do a couple of large water changes with RO water to get that nitrate down before adding any livestock.

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No need to do anything crazy to switch from one water source to another. Just start using RO to mix up your new saltwater. You can use straight RO to top-off for evaporation too (only H2O is evaporating in the first place). Why are you doing a 50% change? Small changes usually give better results.

Eli

The reason for using RO water in a marine tank is that it's VERY pure, just water, almost nothing else. So you use RO water and the marine salt mix, and you end up with pure artificial seawater. If you use tap water you end up with seawater + whatever else happens to be in your tap water. This depends on where you live. It may not be enough to cause problems, or maybe it will. By using RO water you KNOW you have clean water. You don't need to do anything to change. Just start using RO water for water changes and topping up the tank. The fish wont notice any difference, except the water gradually gets closer to true sea water as you do your regular changes. If you use RO water in a freshwater tank you need to add some buffering minerals to give it at least some hardness. But in a marine tank the salt mix contains all those minerals already. Ian Edit, 50% is a big water change on a marine tank, better to do a series of smaller water changes if needed. Use your water test results to guide you there, but 20% would be more normal.

Ianab

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