Reusing Tank Water
#1
Posted 16 January 2017 - 08:21 PM
With all the effort its going to take me to get my water to the right softness and ph id like to see if theres a good way to reuse the water i take out when i do changes.
I was thinking of running it through a micron filter first to get rid of the particals.
Then putting it in a bare aquarium with a heap of duckweed to use up the nitrates. Also have a canister filter running thats full of carbon to get rid of the ammonia. And finaly run airstones to put more oxygen into the tank.
Any thoughts/ideas?
#2
Posted 16 January 2017 - 08:36 PM
I drain all of my tank water on to my front and back lawn
#3
Posted 16 January 2017 - 08:37 PM
#4
Posted 16 January 2017 - 08:41 PM
#5
Posted 16 January 2017 - 08:45 PM
. . . . or have a look at some of the aquaponics techniques.
Much of my waste water does into large wicking garden beds where we grow veggies. I'm not returning water back to the fishroom, but at least I'm gaining some value from the nutrient load in the water.
#6
Posted 16 January 2017 - 08:57 PM
#7
Posted 17 January 2017 - 03:36 PM
From my discus tank it goes onto my pot plants and lawn. Full of nutrients and all the chems used to grow plants.
My Tang tanks i feel are too hard and contain salt, if small it goes onto lawn but cant do that on decent changes from my tanks.
#8
Posted 17 January 2017 - 09:25 PM
#9
Posted 19 January 2017 - 08:36 AM
Hey Ryan, I know what you want to do. I've considered it over the last couple of years.
Obviously the first thing you would need is a couple of "treating ponds" probably IBC's. Then you would need to remove nitrates, phosphates, etc. but that's the easy part... Grow frogbit or water hyacinth (noxious so I guess I don't recommend that).
Then you need to monitor and possibly adjust hardness which is simple too.
The hard bit is working out what's building up in your water that you aren't measuring. See when we measure nitrates we are also gauging the build up of other compounds in the aquarium. The thing is that the frogbit won't take care of some of the other contaminants and so the whole process becomes a little questionable in terms of value because whilst it appears economical in terms of resources and time, it may not provide optimal conditions for high maintenance fish like discus.
Using Purigen or similar might make the process more doable... I really don't know a hell of a lot about its benefits. I would run a fairly high wattage uv filter though even if it was only for 24 hours per treatment.
#10
Posted 19 January 2017 - 09:28 AM
Do you think that would help kill any of the nastys?
#11
Posted 19 January 2017 - 10:30 AM
Its not only nasties like pathogens that you are contending with. Its things like hormones that the fish release, and other products from the decomposition of waste. As malawiman says, when we measure "nitrates" in our tank water, we are actually using that as a measure of all of these pollutants. The nitrate reading just helps give an indication of the state of our water.
Being moderately environmentally conscious, I went through the thought process of how to recycle my water. My situation is a bit different in that I'm having to work to increase hardness with my water, as opposed to you having to work to reduce hardness. At the end of the day, treatment options were far more difficult than producing good water from tap water. I get around concerns about the quantity of water I'm using by at least giving it a second use by passing it through the vegi beds, with overflow going to the rest of the garden.
#12
Posted 19 January 2017 - 10:37 AM
I like mm85 idea which supports my earlier post. Have a few IBC and treat them with commercial bioremediation agents. Use uv prior on waste water before it enters the treating tanks. Have vigorous water movement and aeration. Seachem pristine has the potential to eat up the sludge. Forget duckweed, use seachem stability.
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