Reef nutrition

Seawater

Zero Gravitas

Zero Gravitas

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So... I’ve bought water often from some of the local fish stores in San Francisco. A couple of them sell seawater that they say is harvested off the shore somewhere around half Moon Bay. My question is, since I live right by the ocean and the pier, can I just harvest sea water from the end of the pier? Do you need to be so many miles out to have some specific chemistry? Or is using cold sea water for a tropical tank just a bad idea in the first place? I’ve been using sea water from these local fish stores for years and it seems to do the trick, but then again I’m a pretty amateur hobbyist at best. I live a block away from the pier. Maybe I could put it through some purification process?


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OK so I read all the posts, and did some research ‘online’, And there seems to be some different schools of thought about it. There are a lot of variables I can think of right off the top of my head, how close is it to possible contaminants, like oil from docks and such. Is it post-storm, which would affect phosphates that might be dredged up. and how far from the shore you are definitely seems to be a factor. I was thinking I might take some of the sea water from the end of the Pacifica pier and get it tested. I could take it during different tides levels and during lulls between storms and see what they look like. One of the main arguments I see is that Some of the algae specific to the temperatures offshore near Pacifica would die if heated to tropical tank temperatures and release harmful chemicals. Also there is the Pacifica Municipal golf course right next to the pier and it is known to have large amounts of standing water that is pumped straight into the sea when it rains too much…
 
I would be interested to learn what processes the Monterey Bay aquarium uses on the sea water before they introduce it into their tropical fish environments. lol, Maybe I could intern there…


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I’m embarrassed to say, because it has the worst reputation of all time, but Sixth Avenue Aquarium is one. Also, All about Fish in Pleasant Hill has it. I was just there the other day. I took some corals out of my shitty cycling tank that I’m trying to save and put it in some of the sea water I got from the Pleasant Hill store yesterday and they opened right up… I know that can be misleading because there’s no telling how shitty my other tank was.


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I am expecting a four stage filtration system pretty soon in the mail, most of this is just speculation.


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Zero Gravitas said:
I’m embarrassed to say, because it has the worst reputation of all time, but sixth Avenue aquarium is one. Also, All about Fish in Pleasant Hill has it, I was just there the other day. I took some corals out of my shitty cycling tank that I’m trying to save and put it in some of the sea water I got from the Pleasant Hill store yesterday and they opened right up… I know that can be misleading because there’s no telling how shitty my other tank was.


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The seawater at Al About Fish goes through a nine stage filtration process. It's collected with a permit and not at the surface. Since they get theirs from the same source that most Bay Area stores do I assume it's the same water at 6th ave. The stuff is perfectly fine. I've tested it dozens of times and seen 100's of people use it successfully (including myself for years.)
 
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