Reef Discussion
BRB, going to Australia to get water!!! I shit you not, I could probably sell it for $5/ gallon here in the US because it's Australian, lol. My fellow countrymen aren't too bright.
I wish we had a place like that to go get water. I'd never dose a damn thing, I'd pull up in the Ute and fill up a 1000l tote and do complete changes every week.
I wish we had a place like that to go get water. I'd never dose a damn thing, I'd pull up in the Ute and fill up a 1000l tote and do complete changes every week.
You guys and gals don't have any idea how great that is. Like I said earlier, I'd kill for something like that. Hell, I'd probably go out and buy a 3-5000l trailer to tow down there to collect water in and have a continuous water change system in place. I looked at an inlet here that's about 200km away and I don't trust that water. It's about 100km south of the Delaware bay and 200 km south of New York City. So it's nowhere as clean as the water there.
I've been collecting water from an open ocean beach boat ramp at South Durras. The water usually looks nice and blue and has specific gravity 1.029 (on my equipment).
It looks nice and blue in a white bucket.
However, on my last visit, the water I collected must have had weed in it because when I used it there was heaps of sediment in the bottom of my drums. The lesson for me was once again not to collect too close to days of rain (even if collecting from the open ocean) and also to be careful when collecting after heavy seas as you can also end up with a lot of barely visibly detritus in the water that your tank then had to cope with.
It looks nice and blue in a white bucket.
However, on my last visit, the water I collected must have had weed in it because when I used it there was heaps of sediment in the bottom of my drums. The lesson for me was once again not to collect too close to days of rain (even if collecting from the open ocean) and also to be careful when collecting after heavy seas as you can also end up with a lot of barely visibly detritus in the water that your tank then had to cope with.
The boat ramp at South Durras happens to be in the corner of a surf beach, so its not like the average boat ramp and it gets cleaned out tidally. But, yes I do generally avoid collecting from boat ramps.
But, equally as bad is collecting from spots either located in bays/river systems and/or located near the entrance to bays/river systems.
Then again, if you consistently collect when water is more likely to be clean and your corals get use to the water you use (i.e. fussy ones die and you keep the ones that are happy in your system) then your tank will be acclimatised to whatever you use.
I have written previously about collecting water at Malabar, a spot in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. The north boat ramp is a very convenient spot to collect water and I have seen a number of commercial collectors collecting from that spot. I do not collect from there anymore and pity those who pay for the water that comes from there. I have seen water being collected on days I wouldn't even swim in it. To be fair, the collectors wouldn't know the condition of the water unless they actually dived in and looked at it. I would rather collect from the north side, near the rock pool, at high tide. The reason is the area from about the south boat ramp and further into the bay, although open to the ocean, tend to collect all sorts of crap. This crap is often mucuos-stuff that is probably natural, but might be from jellyfish etc. There is also runoff from the golf courses (let's not go into the chemicals that are used on golf courses) and apparently some sewage.
The north side of Malabar is far more exposed and the water comes through much cleaner.
My biggest problem with collecting from South Durras is sea weed.
Does anyone filter the water they collect?
I wonder if one of those sump filter socks could be used?
But, equally as bad is collecting from spots either located in bays/river systems and/or located near the entrance to bays/river systems.
Then again, if you consistently collect when water is more likely to be clean and your corals get use to the water you use (i.e. fussy ones die and you keep the ones that are happy in your system) then your tank will be acclimatised to whatever you use.
I have written previously about collecting water at Malabar, a spot in the Eastern Suburbs of Sydney. The north boat ramp is a very convenient spot to collect water and I have seen a number of commercial collectors collecting from that spot. I do not collect from there anymore and pity those who pay for the water that comes from there. I have seen water being collected on days I wouldn't even swim in it. To be fair, the collectors wouldn't know the condition of the water unless they actually dived in and looked at it. I would rather collect from the north side, near the rock pool, at high tide. The reason is the area from about the south boat ramp and further into the bay, although open to the ocean, tend to collect all sorts of crap. This crap is often mucuos-stuff that is probably natural, but might be from jellyfish etc. There is also runoff from the golf courses (let's not go into the chemicals that are used on golf courses) and apparently some sewage.
The north side of Malabar is far more exposed and the water comes through much cleaner.
My biggest problem with collecting from South Durras is sea weed.
Does anyone filter the water they collect?
I wonder if one of those sump filter socks could be used?
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