[poohbugbug]

Very new to salt water .... took the advice of local pet store guy and I'm embarrassed to say I filled my tank with conditioned TAP water!! All I have is water and live sand in my tank. PH, Ammonia, Nitrite all fine for 7 days. Nitrate 10-15! Tested my Tap.....10-15! I was told this water is fine to cycle with and fine for fish only tank. I want inverts. Do I put live rock in with this level and allow to cycle? Or do I make a big water change with distilled water, let cycle, then start adding rock, fish, then inverts, essentially starting over? The guy at the store said algae can fix my nitrate problem, what does he mean? He also said I'd be doing lots of water changes before adding fish?? I'm not thrilled with the idea of carrying 10 gallons of water out of the grocery store. Is my next option to buy a RO system? I saw this one in another posting Aquarium Water Quality: Pure-Flo II RO Units
Are the RO systems from say home depot the same as ones sold for aquariums? Lots of questions!!! Sorry!
Tank is 29 gallon.

[glampka]

Ok, it's not the end of the world using tap water. Problem is the nutrients in the tap water will help feed nusiance algae. You have a couple choices:
1. Cycle the tank with the water you have & use RO/DI for water changes & top off in the future.
2. Get yourself a RO/DI unit - check Products and answers for your water treatment needs.. They sell a unit called MightyMite + DI for $99 - great for your size tank. Then make your salt water from that.

[Jareth]

I started and cycled my tank with tap water, but have done all my subsequent water changes with RO/DI. You should be fine.

[NATIVEVAMAN]

Gary forgot the most important piece of advice.Find anothe lfs.

[thelastmucci]

Originally Posted by NATIVEVAMAN

Gary forgot the most important piece of advice.Find anothe lfs.

LOL@Dale....good call man

[120gallons]

Step up the water change frequency. Being a new tank your going to have algae outbreaks anyway...just may have a bit worse of them.

[dfurbee]

Don't worry too much, I did the same thing. After it cycled, I started using distilled H2O untill I got my RO/DI unit. My H2O is crystal clear now! I did have algae problems, but after adding a good CUC, no more algae

[rlcline76]

The algae that the LFS is referring to for nitrate control is probably macroalgae like cheato or caulerpa...I am assuming a lot, though! lol
I agree with everything said here. I started the same way. It is good that you caught the problem early on. I had conditioned tap for a month before I started with distilled and, then a week later, RO/DI. I had no algae outbreaks like others have.