New octopus guy

[bluespotocto]

I am not sure about your question but i would be safe and use distilled water. Dont forget water weighs about 7 pounds a gallon. So if you go and fill up a 5 gallon jug you will have to carry 35 pounds of water home. Just a heads up.

 

[CaptFish]

Springwater is a no no, it can contain heavy metals.

 

[Ryan Smith]

Thanks. Well luckily the grocery store is mabye.... a quarter mile away at best. So 5 gallons divided by 40 = 8 trips? So 4 miles there and back 8 times? Thats not bad. Water weighs 7 lbs per gallon? I thought it was 8-10lbs per gallon. Hey I was just thinking... Im going to need to buy lots of salt. 20 gallons worth per month right?

 

[corpusse]

I don't think its a good idea to have any saltwater tank with the exception of the smallest nano's and not have an RO/DI unit. Unless your tap water is very good. What is the TDS of your tap water? What happens if you have an emergency on a holiday or when the store is closed? Grocery stores tend not to keep their machines at 0tds since drinking water has lower standards. While a low tds is acceptable you will have no way of controlling how high they let the tds get to.

Not to mention carrying water gets old fast.

 

[Ryan Smith]

My parents wont let me get a RO/DI because of how much water they waste. Guess who would be paying the water bill?

 

[monty]

It seems like for the amount you use for your tank, the waste water would be a proverbial drop in the bucket compared to normal household water consumption. Maybe you could offer to chip in $10 or $20 per month for the water bill, but I'd expect the actual waste to be more like $1/month. Running a load of dishes or clothes or watering the lawn for a day almost certainly takes more water than you'd use for RO/DI top offs and water changes.

 

[Ryan Smith]

Wait, but if I make 100 gallons of water, then thats 400 gallons used. Which is..... A lot

 

[DWhatley]

Without a dedicated water source, running an RO/DI unit is difficult and I would consider purchasing water if Neal had not made a setup in our garage for this purpose. If you are using distilled water, there is no real emergency concern because every drug and grocery store has it. You would be more likely to have to wait on a non-dedicated RO/DI unit to make the water at .5 - 1 gallon/hour than not being able to get distilled from a store.

The waste water is significant and depends highly on your water and sewer charges. In GA our water is very inexpensive but depending upon the county, our sewer bill can get costly. Here sewer charges are based upon consumption, regardless of where the water actually goes and in some places are as much as twice the water rate (they will make special considerations for filling swimming pools but that has to be arranged in advance). Even with sewer addition (usually 2X consumption), my bill is only about $5.00 a month more than when I did not have 8 tanks (some of that may be increased pricing as well).

If you use distilled water there is no issue with water quality or undesired menerals. It will not be made in the store like some of the RO water so there is no filter issue as distilling is a different process. The biggest issue with distilled is the lack of oxygen and it should be areated before putting it into the tank (a small air pump with airstones in the containers works for this). I would recomend keeping a 5 gallon container with fresh and a 5 gallon container mixed with marine salt and run air stones in both (you can use one pump).

The easiest way to avoid any potential shortage is to have a minimum quantity always on hand (say 5 gallons) that is never used up (but rotated out so it is always the newest purchased) (room under your bed perhaps or the garage is sometimes an option?). This would mean that buy 20 gallons, allow yourself to use 15 (basically 2 water changes and a top off bucket) and always get more when you are down to the 5 gallon reserve.

 

[Ryan Smith]

Well on that note, I will probably get a RO/DI. Speaking of aerators, what sized areator do you need in the tank itself. I read that octos require a lot of air, but I couldnt find a certain size that I need. How often do you buy additional salt? When you change the 5 gallons every week, do you need to add another 5 gallons worth of salt? And for mixing salt and water, do you just use any 5 gallon bucket? Theres no chemicals in the plastic? Ill look up water prices, but Id figure in my area water is probably expensive. When I lived in Wisconsin I remember that water was $.06 per gallon. Which would add up to $1.20 per 5 gallons. Im sure I can find water rates in my area online. Looking like RO/DI is still a better deal. I was reading about live rocks today. You have to acclimate them too??? It looks harder to acclimate the rocks than the tank and octo itself. Looking forward to getting my octo.

Oh by the way, I was looking for Nancy and Colins book at the library (can't afford the book atm) I can't find it. I'm going to try to have the library get it from out of state.

 

[DWhatley]

You will need to top off your tank with fresh water (daily or every other day) to replace evaporation. Salt does not leave the tank when water evaporates but, depending on splash you will get what we call salt creep where water splashes on to the top, sides, into crevices and the dries, leaving the salt behind. Salt creep is on of the reasons, you need to monitor the salt level in your tank.

When you do a water change, you exchange (take out and replace) saltwater for saltwater, this also works to keep the salt content constant in the aquarium but again, the exchange is not always exact so monitoring is desirable. Saltwater should not be used the day it is mixed. Keeping an areated 5 gallon (one large water change) of premixed is desireable with or without and RO/DI unit and is the reason for the suggestions above.

 

[Ryan Smith]

Hmm, A little off topic but what kind of fans are used to cool fish tanks? Im thinking the temp of my tank might get to 80 degrees at best. Im thinking a fan will be able to lower the temp by 2 degrees. Are there special aquarium fans? Is 80 degrees too high? 75-78 degrees applies to indonesan octo such as aculeatus too right?

 

[corpusse]

Hmm, A little off topic but what kind of fans are used to cool fish tanks? Im thinking the temp of my tank might get to 80 degrees at best. Im thinking a fan will be able to lower the temp by 2 degrees. Are there special aquarium fans? Is 80 degrees too high? 75-78 degrees applies to indonesan octo such as aculeatus too right?

80 is a little warm. I'm not sure on the temp for your octopus so i'll let someone else give you the ideal range, but any fan works well. Clip on ones for $5 do a great job. If you have a hood you can use computer fans, one on each side, one blowing in one blowing out.

 

[DWhatley]

We have found that the small inexpensive fans at your local discount everything store (Wal-Mart, K-Mart, etc) work better than the compter muffin fans but don't look as nice If you do choose the clip-on or hang on styles, look for an all plastic housing (computer fans will all be all plastic). Plastic Coated metal is second best but it will eventually start to rust. If you have a sump with no lighting, blowing across it will bring the temp down below ambient as much as 4 degrees IME.