PDA

View Full Version : Giant Blues in RO waste (reject)...



TURQ64
01-25-2012, 01:38 PM
Ahoy!.I'll start this off with an explanation and a few pics..I decided to raise these Giant Blues from Forrest in my very high in TDS RO reject water..I'd call it 100%, but the turnover in my reject container has a high turmover rate, so heating it to temp is tuff. Therefore, rather than stress the fish, I do add warmer RO product water when necessary.. The TDS in this tank runs from the 600 ppm range to over 1000 ppm..Here's a few shots of them, and their TDS today..this is about as low TDS as they ever see...Most of the time, due to the range of this experiment, I use a tape measure instead of my TDS meter doing wc's..!!!...So it's eyes wide shut, other than monitoring the fish's health and overall looks...

The Fish..they came in under 2", and are a little over 3.5 for the most part now..

http://i695.photobucket.com/albums/vv319/Royaliste/Fish/DSC_0321.jpg
http://i695.photobucket.com/albums/vv319/Royaliste/Fish/DSC_0323.jpg
http://i695.photobucket.com/albums/vv319/Royaliste/Fish/DSC_0327.jpg
http://i695.photobucket.com/albums/vv319/Royaliste/Fish/DSC_0328.jpg

and the range...

http://i695.photobucket.com/albums/vv319/Royaliste/Fish/DSC_0335.jpg
http://i695.photobucket.com/albums/vv319/Royaliste/Fish/DSC_0334.jpg

I'll update this as necessary, and I'm really hoping for the best, as these guys would go nicely with some wild crosses in my fishroom..maybe 5 gal bucket lid sized fish??!..Gary

Second Hand Pat
01-25-2012, 02:00 PM
Nice growth on these guys Gary. Will be watching your experiment.

Chicago Discus
01-25-2012, 02:02 PM
hope it works gary because I sure have a lot of RO waste this would be nice I would like to try .....Josie

ZX10R
01-25-2012, 02:06 PM
You are having to much fun with this fish room now your doing experiments :)

nwehrman
01-25-2012, 03:30 PM
Watching also!


Nicole

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

TURQ64
01-25-2012, 03:38 PM
I did this experiment with my own juvies years back, but a 2 week ice storm put the kabash on the project..whole fishroom dead. But now, not electric heat, and a generator dedicated to the air supply..I think they'll suprise even myself...(my fish didn't have the genetics to get large)

Jason K.
01-25-2012, 03:50 PM
Wow and I thought I ran a high TDS of 300 for my growout's... l

Moon
01-25-2012, 05:17 PM
I used to raise all my fry and grow outs in RO waste water. One day lost a whole tank of fry and some adults. I am on well water and probably contaminated that particular day. I stopped that practice.

John_Nicholson
01-25-2012, 06:23 PM
Nice post Gary. This is something that I have done for years. It has always seemed to work well for me.

-john

TURQ64
01-25-2012, 06:48 PM
Thanks John..I've always used my reject, but not at this TDS..I started them over 400 right out of the bag when I got them; it was an easy walk up to this..and some days, the meter is pegged...I decided to make a public thread due to recent queries from a lot of folks about what's the right numbers for this and that..Kind of a visual reinforcement that they are all the right numbers, 'cuz it's about consistency,eh?

hedut
01-25-2012, 07:26 PM
wow looking good Gary :)

Keith Perkins
01-25-2012, 07:55 PM
I use to use RO waste, but at the cheap price of water here I decided to remove that variable when I started running into problems with fry.

Sean Buehrle
01-25-2012, 08:19 PM
Pretty nice fish, good body shape on em.

yim11
01-25-2012, 08:59 PM
Looking great Gary!!!

I've been very happy with the fry/juvies I've raised in RO reject water. 'Waste not want not' right!? ;)

KV_Discus
01-25-2012, 11:34 PM
Great project Gary. I have never used waste reject RO water for my discus but have used it with my african cichlids without a problem. I will try it with my juvies when they get a little bigger.

Bud
01-26-2012, 12:31 AM
Crazy!(nice fish too)Almost curious of the measurements of each of the compounds that contribute to those readings!........Youtube for the experiment!??:)Good luck.

shoveltrash
01-26-2012, 08:30 AM
Here's a few shots of them, and their TDS today..this is about as low TDS as they ever see...Most of the time, due to the range of this experiment, I use a tape measure instead of my TDS meter doing wc's..!!!...So it's eyes wide shut, other than monitoring the fish's health and overall looks...
now THAT is a high TDS! what's the pH run?
I'll be very interested in following this - curious as to what your water params are out of the tap?
I'm assuming "RO waste" is an improvement over straight tap.....just not sure how?




curious of the measurements of each of the compounds that contribute to those readings!.
+1

TURQ64
01-26-2012, 08:54 AM
now THAT is a high TDS! what's the pH run?
I'll be very interested in following this - curious as to what your water params are out of the tap?
I'm assuming "RO waste" is an improvement over straight tap.....just not sure how?




+1

Well, first, I seldom worry about ph, as stated many times..I haven't monitored it for this experiment..('eyes wide shut')..
In my circumstance RO waste is safe. My tap has very unregulated amounts of Chloramines. Nothing safe about it. My house is the low spot in a couple hundred mile water system, so gravity deposits tons of chloramines, as well as any heavies, in my tap. The RO reject has been thru many prefilters, whereas the tap hasn't.
The source for our Rural Water District water is deep Artesian wells below the aquafir. All Calciferous rock for the most part, intermingled in Granite, sitting on Quartzite.
Ground water wells in the Midwest can be very unsafe, as the aquafir receives all of the chemicals used to promote modern agriculture. The nearest to me (a few hundred feet) has more colors than a pop art poster from Haight Street back in the day..
Not much of a 'you tub'er'...hard enought o get to these forums between wc's

shoveltrash
01-26-2012, 10:09 AM
thanks for the explanation!
apologies for missing you stating "I seldom worry about pH" - I'm still curious as to what it is ;).
knowing that it isn't your priority in this experiment, it would still be interesting.

shoveltrash
01-26-2012, 10:19 AM
duplicate post

TURQ64
05-03-2012, 09:12 AM
I haven't updated these fish in a while, and have posted elsewhere,so...here's a few current photo's of their growth. TDS has dropped due to spring changes in my municipal source (they use several), and the fact that we are using more reject to do gardening,etc. By more use, the reject doesn't cycle as often, making the TDS in the high 400's instead of 700....Most are pushing 5", a few larger, a few smaller...quite the variety in their phenotypes....

http://i695.photobucket.com/albums/vv319/Royaliste/Fish/DSC_0020.jpg
http://i695.photobucket.com/albums/vv319/Royaliste/Fish/DSC_0021.jpg
http://i695.photobucket.com/albums/vv319/Royaliste/Fish/DSC_0023-1.jpg
http://i695.photobucket.com/albums/vv319/Royaliste/Fish/DSC_0024-1.jpg

Hard water, fed flakes, freeze dried bloodworms,blackworms, pellets, frozen....

edit: since it was asked, I checked the ph today; 8.3

shoveltrash
05-03-2012, 09:21 AM
wow, they look GREAT. I've been wondering how this project was coming along - thanks for updating!
you've been a good influence, I now focus on TDS to keep things stable in my tank :)

Second Hand Pat
05-03-2012, 09:27 AM
Gary, the high TDS agrees with these guys :) Appear to be growing out nicely

JamesP
05-03-2012, 09:39 AM
Gary,

It was good seeing you the other night. I hope the new guys or gals depending on theories are doing well. The fish in your photos are even more impressive in person. Funny this post came up today. I got a visit from the water department yesterday while I was out of town. My wife(CP Chief Procurement Office) spoke with them. They thought we might have a water leak either with the sprinkler system or somewhere in the house since my water useage was up to 90,000 gallons in the last few months. Heidi assured them there was one major leak and showed them the fishroom. The laughed and agreed they had found the source of the leak. I guess it is time for the reject plumbing project to begin Saturday. At least now the CP :argue:won't balk at the price of the plumbing material.

Jim

TURQ64
05-03-2012, 10:04 AM
Heidi assured them there was one major leak and showed them the fishroom. The laughed and agreed they had found the source of the leak. I guess it is time for the reject plumbing project to begin Saturday. At least now the CP :argue:won't balk at the price of the plumbing material.

Jim

Man, you got me to blow my coffee out my nose!....good one!...That's just about spot on for the amt. we use, including the rest of the house. It's been a slow road, but the recycling of the reject is becoming quite simple. A ball valve here and there switches various parts of the house to reject now. I just got the outside backyard spigot plumbed in yesterday, so on it goes...fish are doing great..Was excellent to see you and chat again....I got the shallow well pump that's the heart of the reject at Northern in Minnetonka; they likely have 'em in Burnside..

As with the original reason for this thread, stability is a huge part of growing big, thick Discus..be it water parameters, food, even your routine...

dpete9
05-03-2012, 10:07 AM
wow nice growth and super round.. Beautiful fish too.

Eddie
05-03-2012, 10:43 AM
Nice fish Gary! Great work!

JamesP
05-03-2012, 12:07 PM
[QUOTE=TURQ64;888286]Man, you got me to blow my coffee out my nose!....good one!...

Sorry about the coffee:bandana:

CrazyAngels
05-03-2012, 03:32 PM
Gary your Blues are doing excellent. congrats my friend.

hedut
05-03-2012, 04:16 PM
Looking good Gary

Silver
05-03-2012, 05:34 PM
Wow Gary nice and beautiful fish congrats..

jimg
05-03-2012, 06:28 PM
I raised some tanks of fry in ro waste 650+ tds and some in tap 350 and both grew the same. It is a good use of waste though.

'cuz it's about consistency,eh? not sure if I would say consistency with tds bouncing between 600 to 1000 though, but they seem not to mind.

discushwater
05-03-2012, 07:27 PM
why would you use waste water? i'am puting in an ro just to soften the water.I'am new to all of this

scubajustin
05-03-2012, 10:47 PM
Gary this is a great project - your fish look great. Keep the updates coming!!

Justin

Second Hand Pat
05-03-2012, 10:49 PM
why would you use waste water? i'am puting in an ro just to soften the water.I'am new to all of this

To reuse the water. Some of these guys with fishrooms use alot of water and water gets expensive

MostlyDiscus
05-03-2012, 11:05 PM
90k gallons would bring your water bill up a bit. Throw in the water for the yard and the water bill can triple from the winter months bills. I use 40 percent RO 60 tap run through carbon for breeders and around 50/50 RO reject and tap for grow outs. Keeps my gallons down to around 45k per 3 months. Fish rooms are expensive as SHP pointed out. Ed

DiscusKev
06-07-2012, 06:48 PM
Those discus have some nice body shape, good job on growing them out using those waste water (yeah I know I am months late on this thread).

Discus-n00b
06-07-2012, 06:58 PM
Please keep updating us on these, I LOVE the Giant Blues!

TURQ64
06-10-2012, 01:19 PM
No photo's today, as everythings so humid, the lens fogs over,but....This experiment moves into another gear now. The Giant Blues, with the exception of a runt, are now in with my Heckel crosses...Now for a more interesting, but way slower phase; Giant Blue genes and Heckel genes..Hopefully, more chances for large Turquoise Discus..time will tell!..Gary

vicdiscus
06-10-2012, 01:55 PM
Nice job Gary.

I wish I could steal your water parameter but my water parameter is very LOW level.

My water parameter can not reach to 400 ppm or 700 ppm TDS.

only 28 ppm.

fattubwhale
06-10-2012, 10:27 PM
Pretty cool project! Looking forward to seeing some Crosses in the near future.

BobDaniel
07-23-2012, 01:16 PM
Pretty nice fish, good body shape on em.

I agree!

Cosgrovb
10-24-2012, 09:24 PM
Any updates on this project?

Cosgrovb
12-28-2012, 12:08 AM
Gary -- did you give up on this project?