minimalist
New member
Title says it all -- I'm wondering if evaporated water brings nutrients out with it.
Does evaporated water export nutrients?
- Thread starter minimalist
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minimalist
New member
I top off about 2 cups/day in my open top 10g. You're saying that's not equivalent to a 2 cup water change? Other opinions, please? Has any research been done on this subject?
Revance, you are mostly right, when it is thick. But salt creep appears where there is no splashing.
More importantly, in desalinating plants, they evaporate the water 3-4 times at least to remove enough salt. Evaporated water is not %100 H2O at all. If it were why do any other filters exist why don't we always evaporate instead of RO/DIing? However, as a nurient export, it's minimal.
More importantly, in desalinating plants, they evaporate the water 3-4 times at least to remove enough salt. Evaporated water is not %100 H2O at all. If it were why do any other filters exist why don't we always evaporate instead of RO/DIing? However, as a nurient export, it's minimal.
Weatherman
New member
Evaporated water is 100% H2O molecules as a gas. So, evaporation of water, by definition, doesnââ"šÂ¬Ã¢"žÂ¢t export anything but water.
Now, there are other ways stuff can get out of your tank:
1) It can leave as a gas, such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen or ammonia.
2) It can leave as an aerosol. When a bubble pops it leaves little salt nuclei behind, which can drift away. If the nuclei land on a surface, they form a little layer of salt dust.
3) And, of course, water, containing nutrients, can be dripped, splashed or spilled out, leaving salt creep behind
Now, there are other ways stuff can get out of your tank:
1) It can leave as a gas, such as carbon dioxide, nitrogen or ammonia.
2) It can leave as an aerosol. When a bubble pops it leaves little salt nuclei behind, which can drift away. If the nuclei land on a surface, they form a little layer of salt dust.
3) And, of course, water, containing nutrients, can be dripped, splashed or spilled out, leaving salt creep behind
divewsharks
Active member
what Weatheman said.
so no adding 2 cups of water each day is not equal to 2 cup water change.
so no adding 2 cups of water each day is not equal to 2 cup water change.
revance
New member
What do you think distilling water does? We have other forms of filtration because not everyone has the enormous amount of space required to setup a still. Not to mention most stills are made of copper, which could cause problems in a reef tank (although some "distilled" water is actually made by using chemical demineralization nowdays).
Hmm,
I'm not in the mood to get into a debate. Revance, and Weatherman.
Evaporation does indeed carry impurities with it, at a minimal level. I guess you guys havn't ever smelled the salt by the sea? How about your kitchen sink if you've ever left it full. Impurites that are soluble in water evaporate as well as water. This is a simple question of vapour pressures for chemical impurites (being that they evaporate with the water) and surfactant attraction (same reason your skimmer works) for particles that get brought up with the water vapour. Rest assured, if you collected evaporated tank water, it wouldn't tase very fresh.
The point is moot, we all agree that evaporation is not a viable means of nutrient export and evaporating 2 cups of water is not the same as removing 2 cups of water. But it probably is the same as removing 1/1000th of a cup.
I'm not in the mood to get into a debate. Revance, and Weatherman.
Evaporation does indeed carry impurities with it, at a minimal level. I guess you guys havn't ever smelled the salt by the sea? How about your kitchen sink if you've ever left it full. Impurites that are soluble in water evaporate as well as water. This is a simple question of vapour pressures for chemical impurites (being that they evaporate with the water) and surfactant attraction (same reason your skimmer works) for particles that get brought up with the water vapour. Rest assured, if you collected evaporated tank water, it wouldn't tase very fresh.
The point is moot, we all agree that evaporation is not a viable means of nutrient export and evaporating 2 cups of water is not the same as removing 2 cups of water. But it probably is the same as removing 1/1000th of a cup.
Evaporation is 100% H2O and 0 other nutrients. Smell of ocean by the sea is caused by waves crashing, causing the salt water to get sprayed into the air, not evaporate. With this saltwater that gets sprayed in the air goes everything in the water. Most of that water falls back to earth, which is the reason why wood will deteriorate rapidly when near rocky coastline because the salty air drastically increases the deterioration of the wood. Once again, nothing to do with evaporation.
The only way you get any nutrients exported from a tank would be small bubbles popping or the liquid nutrients becoming gases.
CyanoMagnet
New member
Guys... evaporated water is just that. Pure h20. Everything else is through microscopic droplets that you cant see and dry instantly when they land on a dry surface but the salt is carried with it. If evaporated water actualy did carry other things with it such as salt, over time every lake in the world would be a saltwater lake since the water is actualy being evaporated from the ocean. Im talking millions of years.
Kalkbreath
In Memoriam
Im kinda on the fence with this one. What is it that we smell when a tank crashes? Smelly water reaches our nose by what process? Isnt this the same process that would remove something from the tank water other then H2O? How much of the water missing from a tank is from gassing out and how much from evaporation? Whats the difference? The ocean sure smells like the ocean even when out on a boat miles from the breakers. The ocean smells a lot likr a bag of Instant ocean salt mix. How come I can smell the surf a good mile inland when visiting the beach? Does salt creep travel 1600 yards? Or is it this process of transporting the ocean smell something else?
Does simply smelling your tank actually filter it to some tiny degree?How can it not? Is it actually possible to cure red cyno if enough people take a "whif" of my reef? What would we call such a filter?
Does simply smelling your tank actually filter it to some tiny degree?How can it not? Is it actually possible to cure red cyno if enough people take a "whif" of my reef? What would we call such a filter?
Guys,
Believe what you will. I just think you need to take some chemistry classes before you claim anything about purity. Any biology student will tell you what they have to go through to get pure H2O and it's not simple evaporation. Most systems that claim 99.99% are RO/DI double distilled. I think the main basis of this argument is simply your perspective on purity. PURE H2O is exactly that, H2O and nothing else.
We are argueing in circles, but go ask someone else who who will believe. If you evaporate water and then look at the vapour you will have a mixture of impurities. Logical reasoning should tell you that some level of impurity is always present in any reaction. Nothing is absolute.
Revance, Cyano.
Try and think of the scale of impurity. The water cycle is a wee bit more complex than simple evaporation and percipitation. You are oversimplifyiing and confusing yourselves. There DOES exist some salts in all the fresh water in the world. There exists salts almost everywhere that the water cycle touches. The argument that lakes would be salt water is missing the point of the scale of impurities. It is not a matter of it either being salt water or not being salt water. There is a scale of salinity.
Believe what you will. I just think you need to take some chemistry classes before you claim anything about purity. Any biology student will tell you what they have to go through to get pure H2O and it's not simple evaporation. Most systems that claim 99.99% are RO/DI double distilled. I think the main basis of this argument is simply your perspective on purity. PURE H2O is exactly that, H2O and nothing else.
We are argueing in circles, but go ask someone else who who will believe. If you evaporate water and then look at the vapour you will have a mixture of impurities. Logical reasoning should tell you that some level of impurity is always present in any reaction. Nothing is absolute.
Revance, Cyano.
Try and think of the scale of impurity. The water cycle is a wee bit more complex than simple evaporation and percipitation. You are oversimplifyiing and confusing yourselves. There DOES exist some salts in all the fresh water in the world. There exists salts almost everywhere that the water cycle touches. The argument that lakes would be salt water is missing the point of the scale of impurities. It is not a matter of it either being salt water or not being salt water. There is a scale of salinity.
