Natural sea water

[Kingtriton92]

Given our proximity to the coast is anyone collecting seawater for use in their reef tanks?

On my trip down the YouTube rabbit hole this morning I stumbled upon a few videos highlighting some stunning natural sea water reef tanks and my curiosity was peaked.

 

 

 

[SuncrestReef]

I have not.  But since I’m heading to the coast this weekend, I might collect a small sample to bring home and test the water parameters just for fun.  I’m curious to see the alkalinity and nutrient levels.

[milesmiles902]

I'm pretty sure pH and alkalinity are actually quite a bit different in the ocean, especially with people having upwards of 11 dKH.

2 hours ago, Kingtriton92 said:

Given our proximity to the coast is anyone collecting seawater for use in their reef tanks?

On my trip down the YouTube rabbit hole this morning I stumbled upon a few videos highlighting some stunning natural sea water reef tanks and my curiosity was peaked.

Check-out the health of most public aquariums. It's pretty amazing.

[markvo]

What about the bacteria and other biologic elements in the local water. This must vary a lot from the tropical reefs that we are typically trying to emulate.

[youcallmenny]

18 minutes ago, markvo said:

What about the bacteria and other biologic elements in the local water. This must vary a lot from the tropical reefs that we are typically trying to emulate.

This was my first thought too that we don't necessarily have the same type of seawater on the microscopic scale.  The temperature difference alone makes me think they are worlds apart.  Perhaps it is the same and just moves much slower biologically.  I'm pretty curious if our local biologists have anything to say about this.  @IntoTheMystic, do you have any insight to share about this? @Lexinverts is this something up your alley? @EMeyer?

[Lexinverts]

56 minutes ago, markvo said:

What about the bacteria and other biologic elements in the local water. This must vary a lot from the tropical reefs that we are typically trying to emulate.

Since we use freshwater to make our tank saltwater, I doubt that regional differences in the microbes would have much of an impact. I think most of these microbes don't survive once the water is salted, and then the microbial community is dominated by species that come from our live rock and corals, etc... On the other hand, if we were using seawater collected from different areas in the ocean to use in our reef tanks, then I would expect to see more regional differences in microbes.

Edit: Oops, now I see that Mark was referring to the microbes in water collected from our Oregon Coast. I'm not sure whether those colder-water microbes would survive in the warmer reef environment that we create in our tanks, but I don't really know.

[IntoTheMystic]

3 hours ago, youcallmenny said:

This was my first thought too that we don't necessarily have the same type of seawater on the microscopic scale.  The temperature difference alone makes me think they are worlds apart.  Perhaps it is the same and just moves much slower biologically.  I'm pretty curious if our local biologists have anything to say about this.  @IntoTheMystic, do you have any insight to share about this? @Lexinverts is this something up your alley? @EMeyer?

When my tropical marine exhibits were up and running, I used natural seawater from Yaquina Bay that had been passed through sand filters. I held it in a mobile heated reservoir that I schlepped out to the Visitor's Center and back again. As this was from the Bay, I kept an eye on salinity and pH, which fluctuated somewhat predictably on a seasonal basis. I had no problems using heated seawater but if I was collecting from the coast, I would be very careful about how close I was to any sewage outflows or rivers and streams near aging sewage infrastructure.

Out here, there are regular updates from the State of Oregon with E. coli counts and a few beaches are notoriously high. Sometimes it's human waste, others it's dog and cat waste left on the beach that send the counts into the ionosphere. Occasionally, it's intense precipitation that causes sewage to spill containment systems. Since we're (nearly) all reefers, I don't need to tell you folks what a bad batch of contaminated SW might do to inverts and maybe keepers.

I test the incoming SW params on a weekly basis and every once in a great while, I'll get NO3 at measurable levels but nothing above 5-10mg/l.

I'd say check the WQ monitoring website before you head out and run a battery of tests on it when you get home. I'd also suggest that if you use natural SW for WCs, etc., run a sterilizer on it just to be sure. Plenty of coastal public aquaria use natural SW in their systems but they usually nuke it with ozone before it goes to their reservoirs.

 

 

[EMeyer]

I've occasionally added local natural seawater to my tanks on the theory that diversity is good, and because for a while I raised cuttlefish that liked to eat a variety of local inverts (amphipods and other crustaceans). But I never observed any effects good or bad. 

 

Direct comparisons between microbiomes of natural seawater and aquariums are not common in the literature, but I expect they are very different.

 

I'm curious now about the question "would anything from local seawater survive in our tropical aquaria?" I bet yes, but a small subset. Itd be a fun experiment though. I'll include a local sample for fun in my next batch of microbiome analysis. I have replicate aquariums set up that I could use for this; spike some with local seawater and don't spike others, then compare changes in the microbiome among tanks. 

 

Edited September 6, 2019 by EMeyer

[albertareef]

1 hour ago, EMeyer said:

I've occasionally added local natural seawater to my tanks on the theory that diversity is good, and because for a while I raised cuttlefish that liked to eat a variety of local inverts (amphipods and other crustaceans). But I never observed any effects good or bad. 

 

Direct comparisons between microbiomes of natural seawater and aquariums are not common in the literature, but I expect they are very different.

 

I'm curious now about the question "would anything from local seawater survive in our tropical aquaria?" I bet yes, but a small subset. Itd be a fun experiment though. I'll include a local sample for fun in my next batch of microbiome analysis. I have replicate aquariums set up that I could use for this; spike some with local seawater and don't spike others, then compare changes in the microbiome among tanks. 

 

Don't know if anyone has any cold water tanks up and running these days but could make a nice comparison with the local seawater and tropical tanks most of us have.

[SuncrestReef]

On 9/6/2019 at 8:30 AM, SuncrestReef said:

I have not.  But since I’m heading to the coast this weekend, I might collect a small sample to bring home and test the water parameters just for fun.  I’m curious to see the alkalinity and nutrient levels.

You can see my test results from a sample of seawater from Manzanita here: