Pro's and con's

[RichardinMA]

Don't take it personally. I'm not sure why decades needs to refer to 50 or 80 years. 20 and 30 years (2 & 3 decades) is what I'm referring to. And you are right, many waterways have been cleaned up during that time. However, many more have become worse.

 

[panayiote73]

NE aquarium has thousands of square feet and the necesary equipment to clean the water, just like the Perco real ocean water. Most people have a small basement, limited time and limited resources.

No one is being negative. People are just saying that the risks and amount of effort involved outweight the benefits and cost savings.

Also, I believe there are aquariums that use synthetic salt. I believe that Chicago uses salt. (I might be wrong).

Quite the opposite, I want to encourage people to collect their own water. I think if you find it worthwhile and are willing to put the effort into it you shouldn't bow to the drawbacks. There are pro's and con's to everything. Our entire hobby is based on this premise.
Hopefully this summer I will be collecting water myself. I need to research the location a little bit more and I need a 275g tote. Otherwise good to go.

 

[nemodan]

http://www.reefsanctuary.com/forums/general-reef-aquarium-discussion/32411-tank-turned-40-year.html

The article i posted come from this thread page 50-70. In one of those paged the link to the article is. Very nice thread to read. Amazing home reef-keeping experience.

Since the OP asked for both the Pro's and Con's, I think he should be able to hear both. Like I said, I have not collected NSW myself but I am fairly educated on the ecological side of things, including contaminants, that were not a concern "back in the day", or decades ago. The simple fact of the matter is that the state of our oceans is very different than it was 20-30 years ago. Regarding the article cited above, I am not sure when that was written but the reference to the " one or two clownfish that someone bought that were spawned in artificial sea water " makes me wonder just how old it is. I also don't agree with the idea that if the fish are healthy swimming in the water in the ocean then they should be fine in it at home. A fish swimming on the open reef is a very different situation than when they are .......o.

 

[Chadly]

Thank you everybody, I am going to give it a shot. I will certainly let everybody know how my tank mates are doing with the nsw. Thanks again

 

[Chadly]

Well its been quiet some time since my last post on this subject. The tank is doing great using the nsw. I do cheat a little, I add a little bit of reef Crystal to the water to bring up the salinity to match the tank water. I strain the water a few times with a fine screen, I agitate the water with an air bubbler, and also run a hob filter. Again thank you for all the information that you all gave to me. Best forum ever!

 

[Jim Tansey]

I have years of experience with NSW I just converted my 60 gal over about 3 months ago after a year long struggle trying to grow vibrant corals with nice color. I set the tank up using DI/Red Sea Pro about a year ago after a long absents from the hobby due to illness and soon had the same old problems that got me using NSW in the first place, a slow decline of many corals and loss of their orignal color and vigor. I don't want to get into my old water conditions except to say I have been in the hobby for many years and always keep on top of water quality. In the time since I changed over to NSW things are now starting to color up and show some good growth, starting to look like my old tanks! I'm not saying you need NSW to have a vibrant tank we have seen many beautiful tanks that don't, I do suspect however that the Falmouth water contains something that corals don't like and gets by my RO/DI. I also feel the reasons for not using NSW are wildly overstated.

Jim