Should You Use Natural Seawater In Your Aquarium
November 11, 2007 · Print This Article
It seems very reasonable doesn’t it. We keep seawater aquariums and so why not put [tag-tec]natural seawater[/tag-tec] in them. It saves money too, no more buying those expensive buckets of dry salt mix.
The first consideration is availability. Seawater is heavy, around 10lbs per gallon. If the aquarium is fairly large the amount required will be many gallons, much more if it is an initial fill. Lots of large containers, all suitably safe for seawater, plus a vehicle that can safely transport the bulk and weight. Most aquarists live away from the sea, and the dry salt mix is the obvious way to go.
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What a joke. You were completely biased from the start. Clearly you are against NSW so why write the article? 1,000 litre container, a generator and a bilge pump and I can collect a tonne of seawater at a time without any issues. That will last me several months. The initial cost to buy the above is negligible compared to artificial salt + RODI fresh.
No, Jim! I’m not against NSW. After all, this is what Mother Nature provides. It follows, therefore, that it should be ok for captive reefs.
I wrote the text from the perspective of the majority of aquarists. They have to get to the sea, collect, and transport. Unfortunately, there is the real question of pollution for many.
Clearly you have the access, the seawater quality, the equipment and transportation availability for collection. 1000 litres is a lot of seawater, and a lot of weight. How many can collect/transport that?
I tried to look at the potential practical problems that would be faced. Seawater that is clean, can be collected and stored safely is an option to a few – and in the past some public aquariums did this, but some now use salt (no doubt at a considerable discount).
Well, I am not very near to the sea, but I took the efforts to try natural sea water!
I have my main tank with synthetic salt water which is doing great, but some thing was lacking out there.
To experiment I set up a small tank and used natural sea water, it was just filtered for large particles and then dumped it the new clean tank, with no sand, no skimmer, etc.
It had only a basic power head for circulation.
It was a total success. I put some of my existing corals in it, and they were never as the were in my main tank, they sensitive types appeared to be hardy……………
The results were great color, more than full polyp extension, fast growth, etc.
This was observed for a year, and the temp tank has out grown its capacity of coral housing without any new addition!
The natural sea water was replaced every three weeks.
I think, synthetic salts formulas lack something untraceable, which makes the difference………….
The natural seawater is as wonder, wish it could flow in my taps!
Hi Sam.
Now that’s very interesting! I wonder how many have done what you did, and run NSW against synthetic. Often that’s how we advance, with trial and error on this and that.
There is no doubt that Mother Nature’s product is best, provided it hasn’t been tainted by humankind. One ‘synthetic’ salt manufacturer obtains salt from the Red Sea, by evaporating the liquid. Probably not quite as straightforward as that!
However, the fact remains that most aquarists don’t have the storage and transportation (and/or the will?) to go to the sea or ocean.
I wonder what made your corals happier? Perhaps the synthetic mixes are too chemically ‘harsh’? Must say though that in my soft coral tank my main problem is overgrowth.
Great to read of experiments such as this. Though anecdotal, they cause questions, which can only be good.
I had always heard one side of this debate – that natural sea water is plagued with parasites and pollution – until I visited my now-local fish shop. This guy has the most beautiful coral collections I have ever seen. Vibrant SPS like nothing I had seen in pictures, healthy fish, all around great success. I couldn’t believe it. I’m in the process of converting my fish-only setup now! Can’t wait to try it with corals
Believe or not, i live in Mauritius, a tropical island in the indian ocean for those who don’t know and I have owned an aquarium all my life. The funny thing is that I have always spent huge sum of money buying all kinds of plants, imported fishes, etc for fresh water fishes until fairly recently, i asked myself why not try sea water fishes.
So, sea water is readily available and I have a wide variety of fishes that I can fish myself by the seaside, not mentioning that all that is free of cost. Sea water fishes are wild, i have no idea which is the predator or which one only feeds on seaweeds but I am learning fast from watching it live in my aquarium!! My small blue fishes kept disappearing one at a time when I finally spot the my red fish with huge eyes taking it all at one go! Apparently all red fishes are predators, and the huge eye was night hunting… I should have realised. Anyways, my concern is that, i don’t know how to keep my aquarium filled with fresh sea water clean. It turns cloudy, slightly brownish after a week or so. I wonder whether it is my sea weeds which I think must be missing sunlight or the coral itself… Anyways, all this is new for me, i may have grown into an expert in fresh water fishes but still a novice in sea water fishes. Till now, I am simply exchanging 10L of water every other day to keep my aquarium clear.
It would have been nice if this article could have explained more about actually using NSW vs RO Unit + Salt rather than just “you have to lug it around”, im sure people already know that.
Sure mention that 1litre weighs around 1.024kg… but more would be nice.
I’m not exactly an expert (never tried it – hence why I am looking) but it seems obvious not to trust the quality near shore, so might be worth testing the water before you take some? And not to assume it will always be the same as surface run off and near river deltas can change it depending on the type of rain (acid rain and all them worries). Just like the people who collect rain water for their aquariums, we can’t rely on it being the same from one day to another.
Any other info would be brilliant.
One thing I wondered – if you lived on the door step of the sea, assuming it was away from pollutant sites, could you constantly pump water (slowly, and assuming temperature matches fine) through your aquarium and have no need for any kind of filtration/skimming/etc? Sounds like a dream!
I’m not against natural seawater at all. My attitude is that Mother Nature is in charge and knows best.
I live by the sea (cold) but use synthetic. The reason for this is that I cannot trust the quality of the natural seawater (NSW). If I could by going offshore I don’t have the transportation facility, even if I were to collect a small amount at a time.
As I don’t use NSW I can’t really give opinions as to how it should be used. However, I do know of aquarists who use nothing else but NSW. They say that their method is the same as it would be for synthetic, that is they do the necessary routine seawater changes and also add any required supplement, for example calcium. Some find it strange that a supplement should be used with the natural stuff, but the same happens in the aquarium if there is a demand – it gets used up.
The idea of slow-pumping NSW through an aquarium isn’t new though no doubt it is hardly used in our hobbyist world. The public aquarium fairly close to me uses this method on their main tanks, though they have smaller tanks that are dealt with in the normal way. The seawater is collected well offshore then pumped through numerous filters which deal with large, small and miniscule debris and also hopefully remove any living nasties. The aquariums do seem to be doing well overall though there are losses from time to time. As a commercial enterprise cost will be high on the agenda so the power and filtration requirements will have been balanced against the cost of sysnthitic salt.
To say again – if an aquarist is able to obtain clean natural seawater in sufficient quantity, in other words has the collection and transportation facilities then there isn’t any reason why natural seawater shouldn’t be used. However, I stand by the suggestion that synthetic seawater is the way to go for most marine aquarists on the basis that they aren’t by the sea, or haven’t the collection and/or transportation facilities.
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