RO unit???

yes you should all ways use ro-di water a good 100-150 watt heater would do fine you can add live rock right a way that will cycel help the water faster the The Filter Guys .com have great ro-di set ups and a few other places hope that helps  good luck

 

i would say a 100 watter would be fine its only going to heat at what u set it at

 

saltwater is right. Never use tap water, but that doesn't mean you have to buy the unit. It's is probably a good idea to have one, but I don't. I have a thirty gallon and I just buy water from the lfs or sometimes I will used distilled water boughten from a grocery store.

 

Likewise with what everyone else has said.  If you have the extra room, grab a 5 gallon jug from Wal-Mart and that would be two 10% water changes for your tank you can have stored.

 

My tank is only a 12g but I think I'll use Wal-Mart water for the foreseeable future.  Their water is RO/DI with a carbon filter stage.  The cost/benefit to having my own unit is just not there for me.  After the rock and everything is in there, there's less than 10 gallons of water..so 1 gallon does a 10% water change...and it's only .33 per gallon.  I would have to pay for 450 gallons to make the RO/DI unit pay for itself...which for even 20% weekly water changes, would take 4 years.  And from what I've heard it's good enough.  Probably not as good as what some of these units make, but good enough for the purposes of my little tank.
--AJ

 

I don't know if it is true, but I heard that the water that comes out of the dispensers like that at grocery stores aren't very reliable.  I have used that water a couple times, but after I heard that, I just started to buy the distilled water they have in the gallon jugs instead until I find out more. 

 

Pet's Playhouse sells RO/DI as well.

-JB