How do you sterilize your water?

[NeveSSL]

Hi all!

I know some people reuse tank water for aquaculturing purposes. I would LOVE to do this as it would probably help my reef tank, too.

How do you guys do it?

I read somewhere about someone using a teaspoon of bleach. Holy cow! I think they may have added something else back to it to neutralize it afterward, though. But I'm not sure. Or would the bleach just evaporate? That seems to be the most economical.

I've also heard of micro-waving, but that seems expensive energy and time wise.

Any recommendations would be much welcomed, especially insight on the bleach stuff.

Brandon

 

[billsreef]

Bleach works well, just dechlorinate with any of the commercially available dechlorinaters The microwave trick is only good for small volumes, but does work well also.

 

[NeveSSL]

Oh, ok. Very cool.

I'll probably be doing 5g at a time (whenever I'm finally able to get around to doing this... we're trying to get out of our apartment and rent a house ), so bleach will work well.

Would it still be just a teaspoon (5ml) to a 5g bucket, leave it for a few minutes, and then dechlorinate before using?

Thanks Bill!

Brandon

 

[billsreef]

I"ll try and remember to double check the dosage rates for you later. I'm fortunate enough to have access to a nice sea water well that doesn't require sterilizing the water, so it's been awhile since I've done the bleach trick

 

[NeveSSL]

Well why don't you just brag about it, Bill!





Thanks!

Brandon

 

[billsreef]

The fringe benefits of working for a marine lab

 

[NeveSSL]

:lol: Gotcha...

A very nice benefit indeed!

Brandon

 

[Roy G. Biv]

Long Island Sound water. Thats fantastic!!! :hmm3: :hmm6: :frog: :fun5:

 

[Evansbr]

I don't sterilize water at all, but I'm not raising live phyto..
I clean out Rot tanks every couple of weeks. restart with fresh saltwater from my 55 gallon drum, and keep on chuggin.
clean out the fry/growout tanks inbetween nests.

 

[olin]

Hi Brandon - I sterilize and re-use the tank water several times as it works its way down the food chain and have great luck with it. I've just started putting some of the protocols I use in my lab online so people can use them (and so I'll stop losing them). The first I put up were the sterilization protocols. The address is www.azaquaculture.com/info. The protocol on there mentions using a stock of 1M sodium thiosulfate to dechlorinate, but as Bill said, the commercial formulations are just as effective and much more convenient. Good luck!

 

[Zaita]

Bleach, and Vinegar to neutralize it if I am not mistaken. Same way you de-capsulate Brine shrimp

 

[Lifes A Beach]

Olin, tried going to that link but apparently it's incorrect.

 

[olin]

Sorry - The end of sentence period got included in the link.
Correct address is www.azaquaculture.com/info
Sterilization info is categorized under Microbiology Link on the right.

 

[Lifes A Beach]

Olin, great link! Very informative. According to the article regarding sterilization using bleach, you would use 1.89 ml per gallon of water (if I'm right converting liters to gallons). Would that be correct?

 

[olin]

Your math is correct. Exact proportions aren't critical, rounding to 2ml/gallon will work just fine as well.

 

[NeveSSL]

Wow! Awesome olin!

Thanks for the replies. That helps a lot!

:thumbsup:

Brandon

 

[Roy G. Biv]

Can you run old tank water through a 1 micron filter and get the same result?

 

[olin]

For the most part yes - there will be still some measure of bacteria that will probably get through, they usually require a 0.45 or 0.22 micron filter to really be considered sterile. Of course viruses will pass right through even these filters. But, for most aquaculture applications there is a level of acceptable "clean enough" that works fine.
I'm a complete contamination freak in my lab and drive everyone crazy because I want as few open variables to consider when something goes wrong (or occasionally right).