Water change reuse?

I don't see why you couldn't put used salt water through a distiller
and reclaim almost all of it.

Why would you want to do this? What are the benefits?

Well, you see when you distill water you separate the pure water from
all other dissolved minerals. You can take salt water and distill it
and what you get is pure water and a pile of salt and other minerals.
You do this by boiling the water off and then condensing it somewhere
else. When you boil the water the vapor that is formed only contains
H2O, everything else is left behind.

It is possible that aquarium water contains low boiling trace organics that
would also distill over, I'm not sure.

He would be better off collecting rain water and distilling it.

SNIP

Again, the goal here is to conserve water. I am not sure there was
also any incentive to reuse the salt.

How would you reuse the salt?
It would be next to impossible to separate the water soluble organic crap
from the salt.


Lastly, why are you doing water changes to begin with? I don't do water
changes and my fish, inverts and live rock are doing fine.

That's very good for you, congratulations. However, I believe the this
subject is probably beyond the scope of this discussion.

Au contraire! This subject is the very answer to his problem. No water
changes = ultimate water conservation.

b0ogger wrote:
It is possible that aquarium water contains low boiling trace organics that
would also distill over, I'm not sure.

I suppose it is possible. If there were any ammonia in the tank I
guess that might boil off first. Technically, though, anything with a
lower boiling point would boil off first at whatever temperature these
trace organics boil at, then there would be a period where nothing
boils off as the mixture heats up (all energy injected to the system
while anything is boiling would go towards the phase transition and not
temperature change) and nothing boils off. Therefore, you could just
discard anything that the distiller produces before the chamber reaches
100 deg C. Of course, that is even more complicated.

He would be better off collecting rain water and distilling it.

Assuming that there is enough rain. I think there tends to be a
correlation between areas on the planet that don't have much rain and
areas where water consumption is restricted.

How would you reuse the salt?
It would be next to impossible to separate the water soluble organic crap
from the salt.

I don't know. I did not mean to suggest that the salt would be
reusable. I was thinking of this as an exercise in water conservation.
If you don't have access to water, but you do have access to things
like electricity and salt mix, and you're somehow in this situation
where you need to have fresh water in order to keep your exotic marine
animals alive, distillation is probably the answer.

On the other hand, I'm sure there are ways to separate the bad organics
from the good minerals and reuse your salt mix as well, but it would
probably require a pretty sophisticated chem lab and maybe a few grad
students.

Au contraire! This subject is the very answer to his problem. No water
changes = ultimate water conservation.

That's true, though I think such a discussion might be better placed
under a topic with the title "Amazing No Water Change Method of Reef
Keeping." Or maybe, "Water Changes: Who Needs Them?" Or even, "Pros
and Cons of Water Changes."

Blake.

Use it to flush toilets


"Ben" b_rust at optusnet dot com dot au wrote in message
...
G'day all,


I've been offered just about everything needed to start up a marine
tank.

Problem is, we have severe water restrictions here, and I like to
reuse the water I take from my tropical tank during weekly water
changes, and put it on my lemon tree.... the tree loves it.

Is there anything I could do with water change water from a marine
setup... or is it a case of tip it down the sink.

Cheers,


Ben.