Am I paranoid?

[wired]

Hi folks,

Quick question here.
I have a buddy who found out that I've kept a number of reef in my tmie. He currently had a 55gall setup with Live rock, fish, invertibrates etc...

When I saw his tank about a month back it was covered in algea.
He was running a tank mounted whisper filter. I think I made a ocmment or two about the 'growth' and he subsequently hung a second filter on and said that things have improved vastly.

We'll get back to the entire filter discussion in just a moment. On Friday, while talking on the phone he somehow mentoined that he is using TAP water and throwing in some sort of dechlorinator before adding salt and doing his water changes. I think my jaw dropped and I said, "What?"

My impression is that even if his dechlorinator is somehow boncing to the chlorine or causinf it to evaportate somhow, the water itself is still not optimal for his tank and inverts. I told him that there are likely 1/2 dozen or more other minerals he's likely not thinking about too. I then went on to explain the who RO or distilled water thing to him. I happen to have a small distiller here and could even help him out a bit.

First question, did I over-react? Is what he's doing really OK?

Second quesiton, what should he do? Should I suggest he fill a container with distilled water & salt and bathe his coral and fish in it while doing a full water change in his tank? (Is that too drastic?) I'm not sure but he could have live sand too. Should he bathe that as well or get rid of it?

The third question may be more of preference but should he toss the filters? Both I and the local coral guy suggested he think about a 10 gallon sump with some live rock and live sand. I'm not big on the whole filter bag thing or the poss of filtering out good bacteria.

Any thoughts would be appr. I don't want to seem over-zealous but It would be nice to see his reff in healthy condition.

Thanks.

[Billybeau1]

Tap water, dechlorinated, is not the best option. It might be OK for fish only but the inverts may have a problem with the metals left behind.

A major water change is unnecessary at this point as everything is alive and reasonably well at the moment.

First I would talk him into buying an RO/DI unit.

Start doing water changes and evaporation additions with pure ro/di.

Second, buy a canister filter like a H.O.T Magnum and run it with a good quality carbon and GFO.

If he has enough live rock to handle biological filtration, this should be a step in the right direction.

[wired]

Thanks.

Nice Avatar. (looks like anAngel, and Huma/Picasso trigger).
I used to have a fairly large Huma years ago. Fascinating fish.

Is that the Harlequin Sweetlips? Reminds me a bit of a grouper.

[Billybeau1]

Yes that is a Harlequin Sweetlips. (my pride and joy)

A difficult fish to keep alive but I've had him for about 4 years now and he is about 6 in.

His name is Toby.

My Huma's name is Paco and I no longer have the angel. (she just didnt get along with the group. )