Has anyone used natural sea water in their marine tank?

[vonnie]

I've just used the last of my container of RO water and am wondering what to do next. My tank's not big enough to bother investing in an RO machine, and it's a 60 mile round trip to refill the container at my LFS.

I've used treated tapwater before, but given that I have a recurring algae problem I'm not keen on doing that again.

So, given that I live only 2 miles from the sea, I've been reading up on using seawater. For some reason I had it in my head that it was a no no, but it seems not.

I'm going to collect and sample some when I can actually get off my drive! but does anyone else use it, and how have you found it. I'm wondering about pollution with it being the North Sea rather than the Atlantic, but presumably it can't be any worse for pollutants than tap water!

None of my tankmates are particularly delicate, and I only replace about 10% at a time anyway so there'd be no sudden shocks.

[dan51]

i have heard that there are great benifits in using natural seawater (everything is perfectly balanced and it would be much cheaper) but make sure you get it from a non polluted areas

[alanw]

ive always been told and read in magazines that there are to many parasites in normal sea water. had a friend who lived in gabralta tried it and kept loosing fish said that in a small aria the parasites multiply to quick.but if you only have hardy fish it might be worth a try. depends on cost of fish and wether it would damage the system. but R O systems are not to expensive about £50 for a small one and they last for a long time if you keep membrain wet.

[_simon_]

Why is it not worth investing in an RO unit? I worked out last night for my weekly 11 litre water change it would cost me £78 a year not including petrol.

I bought a 2nd hand 200 GPD RO unit for £10 and upgraded all the connectors, new filters and added DI for £76 so in my 2nd year of use I'll make my money back, plus the convenience of having RO on tap.

[MidnightStud]

Blue Reef at Tynemouth use seawater for their displays so in theory I dont see why you shouldnt. But I dont know how this gets treated before it is used.

[pants125]

i would get a ro machine,that way u got some for toping up 2
i got a small one for less than £50 even got a brand new one for free once

[Mrs Mental]

We had a spare 4ft tank and as we live opposite our local beach deciding to set a marine tank - we collected and caught things in the rock pools and brought them home in their own water - we changed the water 50% every few weeks with clean natural sea water and kept the tank for about 12 months - when things started to grow what we felt was a little too big or to multilpy we simply put them back in the sea.

We learnt absolutely loads about all sort of things and really enjoyed keeping the tank - we never lost anything and we had shrimp, crabs, a bullcod, mullet, anemones, starfish and a few other bits I cant remember the names of. We only used things that came from the sea though to put in the tank so I wouldnt like to say that the things you already have would be fine - can only tell you of our experience with usign the natural sea water.

Good luck