so i may have messed up

Ok so im new to the hobby and seem to keep making little mistakes but my question is I live on a deep well and read that I should use RO water is it ok since im on a deep well or is there a test kit I can buy to test this therory

the current tank is a 20 gallon with a yellow watchmen, a blue damsel, a green mushroom that was doing well but has not opened up in 2 days, a skunk cleaner, porcelin crab, 20-25 lbs of live rock with and live sand at 3 inches ammonia 0, nitrate 0, 1.026 salinity,a ehiem 2213 canister filter and a topfin 20 hob filter with it. the tank had some problems when it first started got overheated which caused alot of problems better and then it killed alot but is now over 1 year old.

im upgrading to a 75 gallon in a few weeks but i dont want any of my fish to die and my frags are doing ok. did my water changes and i had a blue and yellow ttail damsel dissipearand my mushroom started acting funny, it shrunk and has not opened and refuses to streach out.

running a 2 bulb T5 1 act. 1 white bulbs are only 2 months old.
it a little long but HELP!!! and i sorry for the bad typing but im not computer savy

 

with the well water, it is even more important that you get an RODI unit. There are probably minerals in your water that don't play well with your tank.

 

You can buy a TDS meter and try that. but other then that it's gonna be cost prohibitive to specifically test for all possible bad stuff.


I would really recommend the RO unit.

 

I also forgot to mention that the house was built in the 50s so its all steel pipes. so where can i get a decent RO unit for a few bucks.

 

airwaterice seems cheap.

 

Best bang for the buck long term will be anything from Spectrapure.
Do a search of AZDesertRat's posts and you'll find a ton of info as to why they are so highly rated.

 

I LOVE my new 300gpd airwaterice unit. I've also had a spectrapure and something else I don't remember. They are worked just as well for me. I get my media refills from BRS.

 

300gpd? Wow! That is a ton of top off.

 

Jonjon she has quite a few tanks, so she needs it

 

A basic well analysis on a domestic well starts at about $150 and should be done at least every 5 years for your health and safety. If you have a well and don't know its quality that disturbs me. Any environmental testing lab can get you the bottle packet and run the tests with about a 10 day turnaround, I would highly recommend it if you drink and cook with the water.

You can get a TDS meter and do some testing but that only tells you something electrically conductive is present, it does not tell you what it is. Its a start but not the tell all that you need.

Yes I would highly recommend RO/DI for a reef system regardless of the source of water. With a domestic well pump system you may need a small RO booster pump if the pressure switch is not set above 40 psi which about bare minimum for an RO or RO/DI system.