papap

Ok I live in south Louisiana. I have my own water well with a water softer. At this time I do not plan to have coral in my tank. Do I need a Ro/di system?

clinton1621

Saltwater (even without coral) needs a very stable ph of around 8 or higher, you do not want to use water that has been softened unless you are adding your own buffers to keep the hardness of the water high enough to maintain your ph level. I would recommend you get a saltwater master test kit (liquid kind not strips) and test your hardness levels (gh and kh) to make sure they are in a good range for saltwater.... otherwise you could have a ph swing and kill your tank off. I also noticed you dont know about the nitrogen cycle, the invertebrates you have in the tank (crabs, shrimp, snails) do not do well with a tank that is still cycling... make sure you read the nitrogen cycle thread in the forum, this will save you a lot of troubles and aquarium loss by learning how the cycle works.

P.S. keep up with your water changes until your nitrites get to 0 to protect the invertebrates already in the tank

papap

Nitrite is down to 0. My kh is around 12. I bought a GE RO system.