Water Cleaning Station.

[anthony]

I'm thinking about doing a water cleaning station. We all have sumps to help clean out water. The problem is even the best sumps sometimes can't keep up with out nutrient output. So I was thinking about creating a whole separate system that only purpose would be to clean my water. You pay a lot of money for the salt ,additives and even filters to go in our Rodi systems. So why should we throw that water away when we can just create another system that's not connected to our main display that can clean the water. That way when you do a water change you take the old water out and put it in this cleaning station. Then you have all this equipment and micro algae that cleans the water so you can put it back in your main display tank. And because it's not connected to the main display you're not in a hurry. It's not going to poison your tank. Worse comes to worse it takes a little longer to clean the water but you're saving lots of money. I believe this will become something in the future and I believe it is a great idea. It's just a matter of someone doing it first.

 

[Adam]

I really like the idea. I'm just unsure how to get the balance of freshly mixed water after "cleaning" in an economical way. Salt mixes have a blend of minerals & elements that get used up by life in the system. They would also get pulled out by macros in the cleaning process.

I think a good brainstorming thread is also a good idea. If there's a way to get waste water from our aquariums reusable while costing, at least marginally, less than making rodi and the cost of the salt mix it could be viable.

 

[Jarad]

This is an interesting idea, but I think the only real option would be to clean it back into RODI water itself. The absorbtion from the life/macro in the system is going to require you at some point to input back some of the lost elements. But, maybe you could clean it back into a useable clean water, or a water that would require minimal filtering in a RODI system?

 

[anthony]

I am not sure but I do appreciate your reply in your input. I'm definitely looking into it more cuz I think it's something that would help in the long run with saving money in a very expensive Hobby. I would rather be spending my money on corals and fish then more salt and more water if you know what I mean.

 

[Adam]

This is an interesting idea, but I think the only real option would be to clean it back into RODI water itself. The absorption from the life/macro in the system is going to require you at some point to input back some of the lost elements. But, maybe you could clean it back into a usable clean water, or a water that would require minimal filtering in a RODI system?

The problem with running old aquarium water through an rodi is two fold. 1. is the salt and other minerals in the water will will foul ro membranes pretty quickly compared to tap water. 2. is your going to lose 2/3rds to 3/4's of that water down the drain as waste brine. Both of those negate any cost savings and will end up costing more than just making a new batches.

If you use macro algae's to strip the organics out of old water your spending money running pumps and lighting to run it all. Then there are no other tests other than ICP to know what is deficient in the water after the organics are removed. Those tests run about the cost of a 55# box of salt. Once you know what is deficient there's the cost of the individual elements that need to be replaced. The upfront cost of setting a system like this up and the cost to run it would mean it would always be significantly in the red compared to making fresh RODI and adding the salt mix of choice.
Again, I like the idea and the thought behind it. I just don't think it's practical, unless someone has an idea that I/we don't know about.

One area you can save money with an RODI system is reactivating the DI resin. Acid and Lye are cheap vs buying new resin but you've got to know what your doing and how to handle the hazardous liquids.

 

[ichthyoid]

Below is a link to an article I read, which makes good points on energy and costs of LARGE scale RO.
Anything we do in this hobby/on a smaller scale, will cost more.

The question is, how will we:
-measure what the old water has
-treat the old water to make it suitable
-measure the treated water to ensure it is suitable
for less than the ~$30-50 per 100 gallons we spend on making seawater from --> tap water + RO/DI + salt mix we currently use?

The article summarizes as:
"The world doesn’t have a shortage of water; it has a shortage of cheap water. And the cost of desalination has a physics limit: it will always take 1 kWh or more of energy to desalinate a cubic meter of seawater."

https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/...er-to-the-worlds-water-problems/#7af27bb47374

 

[kimxd]

The concern would in adding nutrients back to this water. Assuming aminoacids and what not have been deplted/used by your system, putting this back while "cleaning" the dirty water would be an issue, or at least hard to do without raising PO4 and N3 altogether. The idea is great, but to apply that... kinda hard IMHO.