Not Entirely New BUT?????

[Front15]

Hello,
Not entirely "new" to reefkeeping. I mean back when I used to grow hards with Metal Halide Pendants in Minnesota over 12 years ago it seems we were in the dark age compared to some stuff I see on the market now. Man, back then skimmers where a rare and expensive! LOL. Refugiums were only of hypothetical need.

My question is this, since I am now located in Corpus what are the pitfalls of attempting a system with real seawater? This seems like a challenge I cant shy away from. I am thinking 10 to 20 gal. Nothing big.
Anyone have any suggestions?
Thanks Much
Tim
www.pcpolicecc.com

[GaryP]

Welcom to MAAST!

We've had the discussion about water and everything else from the coast several times. I think the main argument against it is that you are in a major urban and industrial area and the water there is not exactly of the same quality you would find on a reef in the South Pacific. Running sea water through activated carbon should remove the organics but there is still an issue with heavy metals. Personally I wouldn't thin metals would be as much of an issue as organics.

[Flobex]

if it were me, i would do a large system (75+ gallonns.. if thats even large anymore...) and do a seawater tank, with fish from the area in it, sinc they are more used to these things in the water.

[Bug_Power]

Front15 there are 4 or 5 of us in Corpus. You can stock your tank from the Jetties, and unless your getting water close, trust me it's just easier to mix your own. The red-tide, and other organics in the water can be filtered out, but it's more of a hassle then just getting an RO/DI system and a trash can or some buckets to mix it in. Most of the coloration around here is sediment in the water which can be filtered out I simply put a RO sediment filter on the end of a 1" or 3/4" piece of PVC and ran a pump through it to push water through. You can clear the water up that way, but would be worried about algea blooms. My HS had a sea water tank in class one year and we constantly battled green algea. You can get decorator crabs, peppermint shrimp and several other fish from the Port A jetties and transfer them back in a bait bucket. Heck I've even taken some to San Antonio.

[GaryP]

Just one other thought as a sort of addendum to my previous comments about heavy metals. The iron based phosphate absorbers such as Phosban are also used as heavy metal absorbers in municipal water treatment systems. Two Little Fishies apparently isn't aware of this or has chosen to ignore it for some reason. Their motivation for doing so is a mystery to me since there was such a turmoil about heavy metals in synthetic salt mixes a couple of years ago.