I am planning on getting a 30 gallon saltwater aquarium with a power filter, skimmer, heater, ect. I am aware of all the items needed for a saltwater setup. I know that you dont need RO water for a Fish only setup, or most FOWLR setups. I know it is needed for a reef setup. This is all the info I can gather from many websites and a few books. Can I use a conditioner to remove heavy metals, chlorine, chloramine, ect. from the tap water, then add a good salt mix (instant ocean), then age the water and add to tank during water changes, or set up. I know to use conditioned freshwater for top off. Will the conditioned tap water be safe for invertebrates such as cleaner shrimp, hermit crabs, emerald crabs. I know you need it for corals but I cant find info telling me if I need the RO water for inverts such as shrimp or crabs?

My somewhat new reef tank (about 2 months) is starting to get a slight cyanobacteria outbreak. While Ammonia, Nitrites are at 0 and Nitrates close to, I think this problem was due to using tap water in the initial setup and old PC bulbs.

I’ve replaced the bulbs and have done a number of water changes and the red slime algae seems to be lessening, I would like to get some snails to finish it off and to take care of some of the other algae in the tank.

I’m probably going to stay away from any hermits as I would like to build this into a reef tank and people have noted their hermit crabs messing with some of their corals. So for now I want to go with Astaea Turbos, but I don’t know how many I should get for a 55 gallon.
I’ve had snails in the past with no problems with them over-reproducing.

I’ve noticed a lot of the "janitor packages" included a sea star or two - would you recommend these? I’ve had a lot of problems in the past with algae in the sand. (Do the hermits do a good job of sifting?)

green water for 9mnths 2wks it is a mini reef tank with 5hermits and a litle bit of live rock (i havent wanted to add much) it is 35gallon(uk) when my tank went green i panicked i got some clorine remover and did 15%water changes every 2days to clear it, it worked for afew days and then came back in full force, I then tryed to turn the lights off a few times wich worked but as soon as thay came back on IT CAME BACK, I was advised that tap water has phosphates in, so i had just filled my tank with food for the alge bloom, so i tryed removing it with phos guard with no luck. so this past week i kept doing water changes with R.O and phos free salt 10%every day for 3days and then 25%for 2days. It went. And now 3days after ITS BACK. ive got a brandnew over kill canister filter, my lights are tubes, 2day glo and 1moonlight, and im using 2 powerheads @ 750lph each and seachem’s puragen (not a skimmer) so a u.v is out of the question (i want my bacteria) thanks for your time please help Dan