Newbie on the loose!

Newbie on the loose! RO units?

Hello! I am in the process of setting up my 1st Saltwater tank ever. I cannot bombard my LFS with 1,000 ?'s b/c they just went out of business. Is it absolutely necessary to have a RO unit for my tank? Someone please answer.

 

I would say yes. I have one. There are options of buying water but by the time you buy all that water you would have paid for a unit 100 fold and then some over the course of the life of the tank.

 

no you could buy RO/DI but a unit is very helpful

 

It's a subject which can become heated...
I would go ahead and take the simple route and point you to LOWES to pick up a unit for under $200.00 and with out having to special order things from a store that is not even in the same state as you and end up paying for a name and not a product.

I picked up a 5g per day system from Lowes, spent $98+tax and it's a 5stage setup.

-fritts

 

I would say yes if you want a reef tank. You will save a lot of time, money and hassle if you know your water is good to go and doesn't contain excess nitrates, phosphates, silicates etc. I started with tap water and had problems with nuisance algae, now that Im using Ro water, no problems. I got mine from airwaterice.com. It was $100, 4 stage and 50gpd.

 

depends... how large is your tank? many people here at 3reef have huge 60+ gallon tanks but noobs like us (or me at least) have smaller ones. i have a 28 gallon and personally dont have any problem picking up water at the grocery store... its cheap. many of the ro/di filter users are hobbyists with huge tanks that make grocery store water impractical. hope this helps