Printable View
There is an urgent need to identify solutions to excess water changes in aquariums and in particular discus tanks. My question is can an RO filter be utilized to recycle Discus tank water with some supplement of new water. Open for discussion and or advice.
I wish I could answer that question absolutely. I'm sure pressurizing your waste water enough to filter through a RO system would eliminate solids but I'm not sure about nitrates. If not, I wonder if a UV filter would help with organic waste leftovers at least enough to keep bio load reduced? Would carbon block help here?
I'm not sure I'm helping but just throwing ideas out there. JamesW is a good water guy. Hopefully he can provide some advise???
How much water are you changing now?
I think you and others in water restricted area may want to read up on RAS (recirculating aquaculture systems) used in aquaculture. Im sure what works for them can be down scaled for the hobbyist with incentive or interest.
Starting point...
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&sour...=1569613389318
Al
Hi Joe. You live in one of the wettest places on earth, also your local tap water is very cheap and of extremely high quality (If you still live in Gordonvale)
Do you keep Discus?
A home rain water tank might be the best place to start. A non-RO multi-stage filter should set you up nicely for some wonderful water for discus.
RO rejects ~2-3x the water it purifies so for every litre of RO water you generate 2-3 L of waste water. You could recycle it but you are going to run out of water very quickly.
Denitration has a thread here which is reasonable. Most others are a rabbit hole of pseudoscience and misinformation. There is a careful balance between O2 levels, effective use of Nitrate to nitrogen gas (good) and sulfate to hydrogen sulphide (bad). Trickle flow through a denitrator with O2 monitoring on the outlet which adjusts the flow for effective denitration without H2S formation is necessary to avoid gassing your fish.