Reverse osmosis for rays

[rudy]

Regardless of the cost of my rays....I would NEVER run RO water full time. My plan is to run it only until the run off is done and then go back to tap. I am completely blown away by how much wast water there is to produce RO. I am not really an environmentalist, but watching the obscene amount of water running down my drain even makes me feel bad!

Rays seem a bit more active in the last day or so. Still not eating (except the largest male). Female that I was most concerned about still has the front of her disc lifted most of the time. Not sure whats with that however its stressing the hell out of me so any thoughts...

 

[earthstudent]

Rays are expensive, yes. So that means it should be easy to justify buying them expensive water right?

Guess I need to sell some rays then. With a waterbill that's easily averaging 13-14K gallons a month, I have no intrest in venturing in to the 20Ks so I can strip water and then turn around and buy a smaller amount of the stuff I stripped to add back to the water. Well, maybe if it comes with a lab coat and pocket protector I might.....

My issue as well as many others here will be total water volume. You start talkling mixing and many don't have room. Constant drips will be inconsistant cause waterflow slows as the filters plug right?

So is the solution to simply eliminate the need for the constant changing of water? Would be a lot easier to swallow the need for RO if it wasn't a constant need.

Again I find myself looking to plants.....

HOW much vegitation would it take to keep Nitrates low enough that weekly waterchanges would suit those of us with drips, and monthly for those running weekly.

Is it agreed on that aside from RO there is absolutely NO way to remove TDS? 1 Micron doesn't phase it, ONLY membranes and DI? Could experimenmting with flowrates and DI resins yield anything? Is here nothing finer then 1 micron? If that's the case then it's RO mix by default as it's the ONLY option.

I think you are one of very few that are starting to see that the water change schedules that most people are doing is a huge waist. Needed but a waist none the less. I have also been searching for an alternative. I have been doing ALLOT of experimenting with plants in an attempt to recreate natures way of filtering and drastically reducing the need for constant water changes. So far I have been very successful. I also have taken some criticism in regards to my reduced water change schedule, particularly on my primary experimental tank that has not had a water change in almost a year. This tank in particular is doing great and nitrates have never been over 25ppm on that tank. I would like to point out that I do not have any rays but I'm planning a large (2000g) ray tank that I will be implementing a large plant filter on that will be the final test for me. At this point I am very confident in my plant filters and my only hurdle at this point is controlling TDS and pH to which a managed R/O unit I think will be the key to.

DB - look into building yourself an algae filter and as long as you build it correctly, I think you will be quite surprised at what algae is capable of.

 

[skynoch]

For us in Alberta water is not that expensive and is the easiest way to maintain a healthy tank.
I'm going to be trying some sort of plant filtration on my 2200 gal tank when I can find the time to do so and think this would be a great idea and alot of fun to do.
Do algae filters work well on freshwater tanks?

 

[DB junkie]

I don't think the amount of water we use in constant drips is a waste at all. The end justifies the means.

I don't wanna sound like a poop head, but until you have owned rays and seen them happy and unhappy the justification for WCs go out the window.

I see arguements all the time on here by people whos rays act funny and they argue the water paramters are perfect 0,0 and under 30PPM. Somehow they are achieving this with weekly WCs of 50% yet can't figure out what's up with the rays behaving differently. The numbers mean nothing. The way a ray acts means everything. Test kits to some of us are a joke and raise more unanswered questions then anything.

I bet most of the die hard ray keepers will agree that in the end the only result acceptable is happy rays. We just need to get to this happiness by the shortest route possible. This means a direct route not 2 steps forward, 1 back, then forward again which is the way I look at RO.

Maybe it's inevitable. maybe RO is a must, I don't know. But I think our jobs as raykeepers is to find out.

Improvise, adapt, modify, overcome.

 

[jcardona1]

not 2 steps forward, 1 back, then forward again which is the way I look at RO.

I agree that RO units are extremely wasteful, but I don't see it as a step backwards. Especially when you have nothing but crap coming out of the tap. Everybody's water is different. What works for one will not work for the other. Some folks have perfect soft water, other have liquid rock coming out of the tap.

But RO doesn't have to be wasteful. That could go to other tanks, water the garden, etc.

 

[DB junkie]

I agree that RO units are extremely wasteful, but I don't see it as a step backwards. Especially when you have nothing but crap coming out of the tap. Everybody's water is different. What works for one will not work for the other. Some folks have perfect soft water, other have liquid rock coming out of the tap.

But RO doesn't have to be wasteful. That could go to other tanks, water the garden, etc.

I understand your point IF you understand mine....

Like I said, maybe there's no way around it.

BUT you have to admit it's kinda funny to have to remove everything from the water then pay money for stuff to add back to it. I can't believe there isn't something out there that would work as something in the filtration scale that fits between 1 micron and a membrane. Can't they just make us a membrane with bigger holes in it allowing us to filter out half the TDS?

I don't want a whole cake, just some cake.

You have answers for everything else J.... Just tell me where my dang cake is.

 

[jcardona1]

LOL! I wish I could. If there was something else out there, I wouldn't have bought an expensive RO unit. As hobbyists we're stuck between a rock and a hard place. We want to have pure, natural water for our fish, but we also want water that's healthy for us and free of bacteria and parasites. But that comes with price tag; being all the extra chemicals and in the water that aren't good for fish.

I think that's why a lot of people use an RO/waste mixture. It didn't work for me since my setup is somewhat automatic, and I wouldn't be able to keep a barrel refilled automatically with RO and waste, since the waste water is produced at a greater rate than RO water (I use an aging barrel to degas my water). It would be a nightmare trying to figure out an automatic system for that.

I think the best thing one can do is a constant drip, using both RO and waste water. Set up a tank, and drip both lines until it fills up, then take some TDS, PH, GH, and KH readings. If it checks out fine, you can drip that constantly, and you'll slowly lower the hardness in the tank. Anything softer than what you have now would benefit the rays I'm sure, since they come from soft waters.

That would get rid of the need to add any minerals back in the water. Another idea, go to a local reef store, and buy some of their RO water, and some waste water. Mix up a 1:4 ratio of RO/waste, since that is what most units produce. That will give you an idea of what you may end up with, without having to buy the unit first. Just make sure it's a shop close by, so you'll can be sure your parameters will be very close.

 

[DB junkie]

I don't have an issue with buying an RO system.... Unless crap happens. IF crap happens and you need a large amount of water then in order to not get caught with your pants down you need a Merlin or something of that magnitude, which is now a problem as the unit itself and proper maintainance IS very expensive.

Space is an issue that keeps coming up. Gotta mix a vat to drip in the tanks. I am out of space. Also like you mentioned automation becomes a nightmare cause as soon as automation's in the picture it pushes consistancy out unles you're there all the time to monitor.

So at this point I think it's safe to say there's no way around RO. that being said now comes the next hurdle.... How to stretch the waterchanges OR lower the drip amount which likely comes from something keeping Nitrates in check correct?

So...... Maybe plants/algae are the next to become a given. Stepped up mechanical filtration too maybe since there will be less dilution via drip.

Problem I see with Going back to WCs over drip is now you loose the consistancy we all love so much about drips, so it's back to how to safely consistantly drip this homebrewed fancy water.

Back to the room issue.

I need a break. All this running in vicious circles is making me dizzy.

 

[jcardona1]

How to stretch the waterchanges OR lower the drip amount which likely comes from something keeping Nitrates in check correct?

So...... Maybe plants/algae are the next to become a given.

That does seems like the next best option. Add a massive algae scrubber, or a ton of plants. That would allow you to drip less, while still keeping nitrates in check.

On a side note, I did a nitrate test on my 190g discus tank last night. Quite pleased with the results; 0ppm! I do 40g daily water changes on this via a semi-automatic setup



And for comparison, the water out of my tap:

 

[earthstudent]

I am not quite understanding why the drip system with R/O and waist mix has to be so complicated.

I would (probably will) use a system like this. All you need is an electric water valve and a timer. Use a 5g mixing/holding tank that would be used to mix the R/O with the R/O waist water. Use a T and a valve to mix the desired waist water back with the R/O water. The R/O unit runs according to the time you choose to run it and thus producing a certain amount of water. The mixing container would overflow into the tank as the R/O and waist R/O water enters. The mixing container is basically only needed so you have a place to test the water before it goes into your tank and that way you should know what TDS you are putting into the tank. You could probably use a 1g container so as not to take up much space.

So the only problem I can see with this is the fact that the filters are going to change flow and output slightly over time. This would not be a problem as it would be very minimal and very gradual. The most drastic change I see is at the time of a filter change. But once again I don't think this would be that drastic of a change and there would be a few ways to compensate a little to reduce the effect and it should not be a problem.

Do any of you see any flaws doing it this way. Did I miss anything?