Ro Or Sea Water And Filtration

[rocknurworld2006]

Hi im setting up a coldwater marine tank as in local marine fish etc.
Wondered what would be best like i know normally marine etc use ro water
but to me it makes sense if i am taking th fish from the sea is it better to use the water there already in.
any suggestions
also what filtration is best to use for coldwater marine

 

[jameshughes1989]

I personally would use RO with a well know brand of salt. I know of people using Natural Sea Water (NSW) but from what I understand it isnt as easy as it seems. Depending on where your based, you have to be careful on the quality of the water. People that do use NSW carry out extensive tests and then aerate the water. Personally it seems like more hassle, espicially if your based round the british coats as most of our shores are filfthy.

Persoanlly I would invest in an RO unit and some salt and make my own. HTH


James

Also, missed out the filtration. I am not very fimiliar with coldwater setups but I would presume that they use live rock. I may be corrected on that though, im not very knowledgeable on the subject.

 

[woody88]

I actually looked into this a while back before I had my marine tank and regarding nsw if you live within 5 miles of any docks or similar land-water activity then you will need to sail 5 mile out minimum to sea to get pollution free water. But sea water is full of nasties anyway. I was told this by a guy who had setup a cold NSW tank. He lived in the channel islands and used to sail right out to sea and pump 200G of water into a huge tank which he then spent WEEKS filtering.

If you do decide to use the sea water then you are gonna need some serious bit of kit to remove the crap from it.
Heavy duty filtration and skimmers etc.

If you do go the nsw route I'd personally recommend using plain ro water and mixing the salt yourself.

The thought of going out to sea off the british coast in the depths of winter would make me stick a heater in the tank and go full tropical marine!

 

[heavenly_d3vi1]

I looked into NSW also, as I was trying to be a skinflint and save money! (save money and marine tanks in the same sentance!? HA!)But even tho I live in Cornwall.. with the very cleanest beaches in the whole country.. research turned it into a very bad idea!

 

[rocknurworld2006]

well i now read 2 old articles featured in pfk and 1 in todays fishkeeper
that for keeping coldwater marines that you can and better to use the seawater were your collecting them

 

[jameshughes1989]

Yeah that may be the case but im sure you would be able to make your own. After all I dont collect the water I use from the sea my corals and fish come from.

What tests and precautions would you take?


Cheers
James

 

[sorgan]

For nsw just make sure it's kept in motion or all the macro and microscopic life in it will perish and make a right mess.

Tbh If your close to a clean source then use it as it will contain all sorts of food, be aware it will also contain nasties but if it sourced close from where your inhabitants came from they should be fine.

Btw you can keep then easily and if you rockpool then the critters are hard as nails, you will need a chiller for the summer months though.

 

[rocknurworld2006]

What is the food in sea water as in say you scoop up a bucket of seawater there is loads of little things swimming about what food is this?

 

[sorgan]

The poos is planktonic life, small plants, creatures in larvae state and so forth.

Any stuff you see in the water is likely to be sand that's in suspension.

 

[rocknurworld2006]

No like taking say a bucket of seawater out of the sea and you look in it youll see dozens and dozens of little things swimming about what is it ? what exactly are they obviously there a microscopic food or something but what

 

[sorgan]

Lkely small sessile inverts or some juvenile creature.

 

[rocknurworld2006]

but what is the question theres obviously millions in the water is this some sort of like phtoplankton ro something similiar

 

[sorgan]

TBH mate I am confused by what your asking so I will try to explain the food in seawater in a pretty general way.

Plankton are split into 3 throphic levels
Zooplankton, phytoplankton and bacterioplankton

Phytoplankton are your plants, things like diatoms and any photosynthetics fall into this group.

Zooplankton are your sessile inverts, baby critters, annelids and eggs. (these tend to feed on the phytoplankton)

Bacterioplankton is bacteria and archea


This is pretty constant for the whole ocean as plankton moves with the currents.
Apart from this I do not know what else you can see 'wiggling' in NSW apart from suspended matter.

 

[rocknurworld2006]

could it be zooplankton or something similiar ?
its hard to explain what i mean lol
basically in the sea sa you just scooped up a random bucket of water out of it and you looked inside you would see tons of tiny things swimming about in it.

 

[rocknurworld2006]

amphipods??