SPS water for softies water change saves salt?

H

honey

New member
Hi Anthony, a friend of mine is building 2 x 500+ gal reefs, one SPS dominated, the other one soft coral dominated. He has them separated like this because of chemical warfare, different light intensity and different water movement requirements.

I was wondering if he could save salt in the water changes, by using the water from the SPS tank as a water exchange in the softies tank, and discarding the water of that second tank in the change.
So, instead of discarding 10% of the SPS and 10% on the softies tank, using the 10% SPS water as new water for the softies.

Would save him 50% in salt and Ro/DI, but bring him any problems at the end?

TIA,

Hon
 
it really is a dreadful idea. There is much more to water quality than allelopathy, to say the least.

If this chap needs to save $500 a year or even a $1000 per year on sea salt for two 500gall displays with a cumulative value/investment greater than the value of some homes that many of use reefers live in... perhaps he really cannot afford to play in this hobby ;)

Kidding aside. This is not a consideration at all. Please dissuade this person from using aged water from an sps dominated tank.

Large public aquarium DO indeed recycle seawater... but they have huge seperate bed deionizing bed resins, ozone... labs to meter/measure deficient elements and the reagents to replace them.

Its really better for him/us to just put the crowbar in his wallet and spend the money on fresh seasalt.

For system this size... do contact your local pet shop and arrange to buy a pallet of seasalt in bulk (cheaper) commercial packaging. This can be done most anywhere in the US from several quality seasalt mfg.s for around $35-40 per 200 gall. mix

kindly, Anthony
 
OOh... I just caught the RO/DI comment. If that means he is also buying purified water... then this person needs to buy a two-column deionizer (see threads on this subject in my forum here and at large... good info).

Go to Drs F&S and seek a Kati Ani model 5 if you can afford it. Else, the smaller units are as good... just need recharged more often.

Please (!) do not use RO water. It is staggering waste of a precious resource (clean water... 4:1 minimum getting wasted down the drain with the better hobby units... thus, this chap will waste 4K gallons of water or more just to fill his aquarium). :(
 
Anthony Calfo said:
it really is a dreadful idea. There is much more to water quality than allelopathy, to say the least.
Click to expand...


Oops, got it! well, that was kinda my idea, I know people using the reef water for their FO tanks after water changes, but it was well worth asking you. Thanks!

If this chap needs to save $500 a year or even a $1000 per year on sea salt for two 500gall displays with a cumulative value/investment greater than the value of some homes that many of use reefers live in... perhaps he really cannot afford to play in this hobby ;)
Click to expand...

Well, he can afford it, he already has two big reefs, 180+ gal each, he is just upgrading. Talk about an upgrade! I would be happy to have a reef just the size of one of his refugiums, LOL

Kidding aside. This is not a consideration at all. Please dissuade this person from using aged water from an sps dominated tank.
Click to expand...

Actually, I won't even mention it to him, it was just MY idea, I wanted to check how stupid it was before I told him about it. :D
Glad I asked you before.



Its really better for him/us to just put the crowbar in his wallet and spend the money on fresh seasalt.
Click to expand...

Understood! I think I was trying to find a way to safe him money, even when he doesn't need to and was on the right path anyways, regarding water changes.
I was just calculating $$ with my smaller wallet, and it kinda made me feel dizzy, so I thought ...oh well, you know :D

[For system this size... do contact your local pet shop and arrange to buy a pallet of seasalt in bulk (cheaper) commercial packaging. This can be done most anywhere in the US from several quality seasalt mfg.s for around $35-40 per 200 gall. mix
Click to expand...

I know he buys IO salt by the pallet.

Thanks a lot for the input! I'm so glad I asked you before, it prolly saved me an evil look from him :D

Hon
 
Anthony Calfo said:
OOh... I just caught the RO/DI comment. If that means he is also buying purified water...
Click to expand...

Not really, I was thinking of the cost of replacement of the membrane, etc. He has one of those Kent 4 stage RO/DI units, or some brand like that.


then this person needs to buy a two-column deionizer (see threads on this subject in my forum here and at large... good info).

Go to Drs F&S and seek a Kati Ani model 5 if you can afford it. Else, the smaller units are as good... just need recharged more often.
Click to expand...

I will tell him that, thanks! I'm positive that he can spend $220 on the ANI 5

Please (!) do not use RO water. It is staggering waste of a precious resource (clean water... 4:1 minimum getting wasted down the drain with the better hobby units... thus, this chap will waste 4K gallons of water or more just to fill his aquarium). :(
Click to expand...

I'm sure he knows about the waste water, at least so I think, but he might not have known better than the RO/DI unit. I will sure tell him about the ANI 5!
Thanks a bunch again!

Hon
 
Just like a dishwasher, washing machine, or any number of other applicances, the RO process uses water to clean itself and make the actual RO water. The "waste water" (i.e. the not-RO water) is not waste at all -- unless you let it dribble down the drain like many folks unfortunately do. I use "waste water" to do laundry, water the plants, etc.

If you just let it run down the drain, it is awful waste.
 
very good tips Nicole.

Sadly, yes... most people simply run the reject water down the drain. An awful waste. Especially with older or less expensive R/O units which waste 7 or more gallons for every lonely gallon of pure water they produce :(
 
Anthony, I am a little confused by Doc F&S site. Here is the Kati & Ani units. Are they two different towers? The only have a KATI 10 listed, and an Ani 5-10.

Not sure which one is best/right. :)
 
tagging along here on this one.

Is the implication to run a tower of Kati and a tower of Ani, or a pair of towers of Kati for redundancy? I would think a tds meter on the output end would give an idea of when the unit is in need or recharging.

Thanks,

Kip
 
deionizers typically come as mixed bed (cheap resin or a cheap trick to make it hard for you to recharge the rechargeable resin)... or.... (best) as two column units with the cation exchange resin (Kati) and anion exchange resin (Ani) are to be run in sequence.

Raw water may be carbon or floss (1-5 micron) prefiltered if you like... but its really not needed for average tap water. Raw water goes into the cation bed first... then the anion bed... then comes out the other end ultra pure without a drop of waste water!

recharging the columns is a simple matter of running a solution of muriatic acid through the cation bed... and lye through the anion bed. For mere pennies the units can be recharged and the effluents are mixed and neutralized harmlessly (down the drain). The recharge directions come with the Kati Ani units of course.

The model number size (1, 2 5 or 10) refer merely to the amount of resin... not the quality. Bigger units needed recharged less often.

You'll need one of each column (Kati + Ani) to demineralize your water :)
 
Perfect,

Thank you my friend. As a side note it is great how you also look at the long-term implications of our hobby on the environment and the animals in our care. It is appreciated.

Kip
 
ktani said:
As a side note it is great how you also look at the long-term implications of our hobby on the environment and the animals in our care. It is appreciated.
Click to expand...

I fully agree with that, thanks a lot!

I have a few more questions:

if DI resins are good enough by themselves, why is RO 'needed' then, at all?
Or in other words, what changes would somebody see if one stops filtering the water with a RO membrane?
Is the whole issue only about water waste, even if that point is NOT a minor one?
Or is there a real reason why a RO would complete the filtering stages of the water? like, lets say DI removes 95% and RO the other 5% of the undesired pollutants?

As someone pointed out above, would a TDS meter show when the resins need recharging?
Is the TDS level higher at the output if someone removes the RO part of the filter and uses only the resins as Kati-Ani?

I clearly see the benefits of saving water and $$ when using only resins and not the RO membrane, but is it really the same? I mean, for the normal final user, like us in the hobby.

Thanks a lot again for your input Anthony!

Hon
 
Anthony Calfo said:
There is much more to water quality than allelopathy, to say the least.
Click to expand...

Anthony, please help me out a little further with this.

Other than chemical warfare, I can think of trace elements out of balance when the water from the SPS tank enters the softies one as exchange, i.e. depletion of some of them, and excess of some others.
Am I on the right track? Am I missing some other important points? Which ones?

Lets say the SPS tank is OK on calcium, alkalinity, nitrates, phosphates and all that stuff a regular guy in the hobby can check with conventional kits.
What would the dangers be? just the things we can't check?
you don't need to go into details of course, I just want you to point me out in the right direction if you don't mind :D

It's clear to me that one shouldn't do it, but I would like a little more info on the dangers if you have just a few secs?

Thanks again!

Hon
 
honey said:
I fully agree with that, thanks a lot!

I have a few more questions:

if DI resins are good enough by themselves, why is RO 'needed' then, at all?
Or in other words, what changes would somebody see if one stops filtering the water with a RO membrane?
Is the whole issue only about water waste, even if that point is NOT a minor one?
Or is there a real reason why a RO would complete the filtering stages of the water? like, lets say DI removes 95% and RO the other 5% of the undesired pollutants?

As someone pointed out above, would a TDS meter show when the resins need recharging?
Is the TDS level higher at the output if someone removes the RO part of the filter and uses only the resins as Kati-Ani?

I clearly see the benefits of saving water and $$ when using only resins and not the RO membrane, but is it really the same? I mean, for the normal final user, like us in the hobby.

Thanks a lot again for your input Anthony!

Hon
Click to expand...


RO isn't "needed" it just takes out almost all the impurities so the DI resins will last a lot longer before recharging (if rechargable). It's the other way around. The RO will take out 95+% (waste a lot of water) and then the DI takes out the rest.
 
Do not mean to barge in on Anthony's thread, but there are a host of other trace elements involved in the salt mix. If you look there are a significant amount of small items, from Boron to copper. If the sps remove any of these items, I think of iodine specifically, it could potentially compromise your other tank.

So I do agree with you on that, but also if there are any other contaminants in one tank why put the other at risk. If anything it gives one the opportunity to have a separate system, so if one crashes (happened to me) I so wish I had a second that could hold some corals while the other got back to speed. A proviso is that this is not a disease which could transfer from one tank to another.

Just my thoughts.

Kip
 
Hobster said:
RO isn't "needed" it just takes out almost all the impurities so the DI resins will last a lot longer before recharging (if rechargable). It's the other way around. The RO will take out 95+% (waste a lot of water) and then the DI takes out the rest.
Click to expand...

Thanks a lot, that clears it up. No pun intended :D

Hon
 
ktani said:
Do not mean to barge in on Anthony's thread, but there are a host of other trace elements involved in the salt mix. If you look there are a significant amount of small items, from Boron to copper. If the sps remove any of these items, I think of iodine specifically, it could potentially compromise your other tank.
Click to expand...

I was thinking about it too, but my main concern was not the 'lack of' by consumption/removal, but the final 'out of balance'.
Kinda like starting with a bad salt mix in the first place, like Dr. Ron Shimek's article says.

I wouldn't worry much about the removal of trace elements, iodine for example, as trace elements are in excess in our tanks and we even add them daily with the food etc. Or am I wrong with that?

So the only issue would be trace elements out of balance? I'm not saying that would be a minor reason of course, I'm just curious if there is something else I'm missing....

TIA

Hon
 
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