Reclaimed water

[Vorog]

Does anyone know if I could use reclaimed water through the RODI system? I'm sure the TDS is much higher than city water. But I don't want to run the water bill way up with the RODI system. Reclaimed water is much cheaper and has a lot more pressure behind it. Just a thought.

 

[rone_kevin66]

I use it to fill up the washing machine

 

[rogergolf66]

Interesting idea. I'm sure it can be done but u would burn through your filters faster so u may not save money in the long run

 

[hmspradlin]

I just put my waste line to my washer. I just filled a 55 gallon drum and it produced enough waste for about 5 loads of laundry. Takes a lot of water to fill up a washer, never realized it before!

 

[robthorn]

Please tell me you won't try this. Not trying to be a jerk I just know it takes a lot more money than just using city water to clean it up. The amount of chlorine they use alone would destroy your ro much faster. There are many other bad things in there you don't want to mess with. Sediment alone would cost too much to get rid of.

 

[bsagecko]

I think roger hit it on the head with you burning through filters faster and increasing the overall cost. Water in tampa area is dirt cheap so if you are worried about water cost I am a little worried lol. But from a science perspective, reclaimed water may have less chlorine in it and thus may not burn through your carbon block as fast, which could save money as sediment filters are cheap. However, if the organics are a higher level than your carbon block might have the same exhaustion. To be honest the few cents or maybe dollars you save is not worth it unless your tank is pretty large.

 

[robthorn]

They are trying to killed bodily wastes for a lack of better words so the chlorine is very high. Especially compared ti Pinellas water which is chloromines instead of chlorine.

I work where they make reclaim water. Its bad news for a fidh/reef tank.

 

[bsagecko]

I know what chlorine is used for and what reclaimed water is but I was under the impression the chlorine couldn't be above an EPA standard for pollution. So is that standard above what drinking water is kept at ?

 

[Vorog]

It was just an idea. I am not going to. Just wondering what you all thought about it.

 

[robthorn]

I am not sure of the exact ppm and I do know there are limits which I am unsure of but I know that it is high enough to destroy brass valves in about 3 years. Destroy to me means extreme pitting beyond repair.


We use reclaim in cooling towers for large ac systems and the hardness and phosphates are so high that if we don't use a softener it will leave about a 1/4 inch thick hard sheet inside the towers every 3 months. It makes maintenance a nightmare as you can imagine.

We use 2, big blue 50 micron sediment filters before the softener that have to be changed every 2 weeks or less. They get so clogged that they suck in and wrinkle. It's really pretty crazy but it does keep the softener tubes from needing to be taken apart every couple weeks and replaced.