Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

I live in Las Vegas Nevada and the water here is pretty crappy. I haven't personally taken a test recently but I will and update the results by here's my question. Everyone says to cycle with dechlorinated water but all I have access to is regular tap water. We don't have enough rain to use a rain water gatherer and it seems like every other process is a little more expensive.

Here's a link to our city water quality test can you guys give me your opinions?

https://www.lvvwd.com/assets/pdf/water- ... valley.pdf

Wow, looks like a pretty thorough water test. I didn't read it all but I presume the city uses chlorine and/or chloramine. I use a product called Prime to remove these before adding city water to my system. SeaChem Prime is available on Amazon.

When cycling a system, tap water would be the preferred option over rain water, as most tap waters contain carbonates and are slightly alkaline, which are both desirable aspects.

If it's only Chlorine that's in your tap water, then it can be removed in as little as 6 hours with vigorous aeration... 24hrs would be completely safe.

If it's Chloramine that your water supplier is using, then it's most likely Monochloramine, in which case 48hrs of vigorous aeration and exposure to sunlight (or UV) will see the Chloramine bond broken and the resulting Chlorine gassed off.