Old Tank Water

[jennifish120]

Although I'm new to this, I have run across a few websites that strongly advise NOT to dispose of aquarium water anywhere but down the toilet or sink. Check out this website:

http://www.sccat.net/#proper-disposal-1e86ee

Jennifer

 

[rfd515]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14785648#post14785648 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by tank41
When i do a water change from my 75g the siphoned water goes into my 40L Macro algae tank.

This is exactly what I plan on doing. I have a 90g planted reef and am setting up a 20L to grow out the prunings. Setup will be pretty simple and the incoming water will be the water-change water that's siphoned from the 90g.

 

[KarlBob]

No matter how many tanks the water runs through, at the end of the day it still has to go somewhere else.

Say you do a water change in your reef tank, and put the waste water into an algae tank. That works once, but what about the next water change on the reef tank? If you never pull any water out of the macroalgae tank, and continue adding saltwater, it will eventually reach a salt concentration that no macroalgae can tolerate. If you pull some saltwater out of the macro tank to make room for waste saltwater from the reef tank, then you still have to get rid of the macro tank waste water.

I agree with MandM and Jennifish120. Especially in a coastal area, it's important that the wastewater treatment plant at the end of your drain will sterilize the water before discharging it. Inland, there may be fewer worries about invasive macroalgae like caulerpa, but the saltwater will be greatly diluted by the rest of the water coming into the plant. By the time the discharge water reaches its destination, the TDS will be far below saltwater levels.

Also, don't forget that wastewater treatment plants are quite natural. The actual treatment is almost always carried out by bacteria, just like in nature. Residual chlorine is less natural, but many plants are now swiching to ultraviolet (UV) disinfection.

 

[therealfatman]

When you consider the millions of gallons of waste water that goes into a waste water treatment plant in any city of any size our tank water is not a problem. I live in a pretty smallcity and our plant still handles over 50 million gallons a day of waste water and that is with seperate storm drains.

 

[dr.darkness]

I use it to clean equipment and such then when I'm done with it I pore it down the drain.

 

[muddysr5]

ooohhhh....never thought of dumping it on the weeds. Good idea

 

[Margrave]

Unfortunately, the sewer isn't the perfect solution either, if you're near the ocean...fairly often (> 1/year) the local treatment plant near me is overwhelmed, and just dumps raw sewage directly into the inlet. There's a plan to upgrade the plant so it doesn't happen...in about 30 years

-Margrave

 

[TomCs]

My local treatment plant can actually buy licenses from the state government to actively pump raw sewerage in to the large lake that our town is situated on and which feeds into the local beaches, anytime we get a drop of rain...to the point of flowing across the backyards of people's homes by the water's edge. Not to mention the other one that dumps raw sewerage under pipes out to sea, just waiting for a big swell to bring it right back to our shoreline. All for the same reason; hugely overwhealmed, no plan to upgrade. Sorry guys, could go on forever but ill save it for the right topic.

 

[therealfatman]

<a href=showthread.php?s=&postid=14626822#post14626822 target=_blank>Originally posted</a> by jenglish
older cast pipes can sometimes get clogged with oxidation. maybe the SW oxidized it enough to break off the chunks of rusty metal. Just a thought. seams odd that a little bit of SW that goes down a drain would be different enough to have much effect unless it was a huge tank.

Outside the house most old cast iron drain pipe is full of cracks as it is fairly weak brittle metal. Plus they a settle and the spaces between the pipes joints increase and allow roots into those open joints. The cracks and joints quickly fill with roots that make the cracks and joints spread even larger. These roots cause blockage or partial blockage of pipes. The salt water kills the roots and increases drainage.

The actual amount of environmental/ecological concern from hobbiest disposal of salt water is very minimal in comparison to the many hundreds of times more people who have salt water based water softening system that drain all its salt regeneration water and salty rinse water into the into the sewer systems. Plus there is all the concentatres of calcium , ansd such that was removed from their raw water by the water softeb ner system that is dumped/drained into the sewers.

 

[64Texan]

I throw mine right on the grass, have been doing it from the beginning with no ill affects.

In my part of Texas, the grass needs all it can get because Mother Nature is not helping any...

 

[Ohio BigDog]

i would think opposite pipes and salt = bad ?

 

[boogers]

I do know my plumber told us to put about a cup of rock salt in out toilet tanks about once a week to help kill the tree roots breaking into out pipes and causing the pipes to get backed up. so maybe it does work.
Sandra

 

[klepto]

I have been using old tank water for curing dead and live rock. It has worked well for me.
Also, when inspecting a coral out of the tank- I use a tuppaware or any other suitable container rather than looking at the coral in open air. It sounds basic but my corals are much less stressed if they have minimal air exposure. Then I just replace the water used with cured s/w. mini water change.

 

[billy1724]

dump it