Why doesnt anyone do this?

[Eb0la11]

Im just wondering, and maybe I just havent read anything about it yet, but it seems like no one uses a desalinator to recover the salt after doing water changes? Is this plausible or would the salt you do recover need to be heavily dosed?

I just feel like salt is pretty expensive so it'd be cool to utilize it to its maximum.

[hillegom]

Does a desalinator take out all the minerals as well? Then the nitrates will come out as well as all the other "bad" things, phosphate etc

[Myka]

The salt wouldn't be "complete" the way a reef salt mix is. For one the livestock have depleted certain elements, and the desalinator would only separate salts, not any of the elements. The salt you got out of a desalinator would eb useless for a reef.

[sphelps]

^ What they said, but also because salt isn't that expensive. For 100 gallon system changing 10% weekly can cost less than $16 per month depending on the salt you use. Now if it cost $100 a month there might be some potential for it, but otherwise not worth it.

[kien]

I think desalinating is a great idea! extract the salt, throw it into a jar and put it on your kitchen spice rack. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle right ?? :lol:

[Eb0la11]

I think desalinating is a great idea! extract the salt, throw it into a jar and put it on your kitchen spice rack. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle right ?? :lol:

I think it could definitely come in handy if all you had to do was throw your water change water into a big barrel and eventually it made a pile of salt!

Only problem is, would that salt ever have fish waste at all on it? lol. Not sure if I'd want to eat it, even though it'd problem be pretty damn close to 100% salt, I mean heck I know most if not all of us have started a syphon and got some aquarium water in our mouth before lol.

Anyways, Maybe my next tank I'll dabble with desalinators and see if its realistic. This wont be for years though, so hopefully someone will beat me to the punch.

[untamed]

I thought the idea behind desalination was to produce water and remove other stuff (mostly salt). They are built to separate the water from everything else. I think what you end up with would be salty toxic waste.

[midgetwaiter]

Aside from the problems everyone else has pointed out with this idea consider how much energy you will have to use to evaporate the water in a timely manner. Putting it in pans and leaving it on the deck might work in August but much of the year you'll be using fans or heat to speed up the process.

[golf nut]

just let the water evaporate in its own time, use it to keep the driveway free of ice come winter.

[Red Coral Aquariums]

Dry it out add a little blue food coloring and put it out to pasture. Cows and Deer don't care if there is fish poop on it.LOL
Kevin

[JDigital]

I think desalinating is a great idea! extract the salt, throw it into a jar and put it on your kitchen spice rack. Reduce, Reuse, Recycle right ?? :lol:

You'd still be buying the same amount of reef salt for your tank though.... and the saving on the table salt would be minimal, aka Not worth it. :wink:

[ElGuappo]

Dry it out add a little blue food coloring and put it out to pasture. Cows and Deer don't care if there is fish poop on it.LOL
Kevin

now theres an idea... Makin money on waste water.

[SeaHorse_Fanatic]

Desalinators are used to produce freshwater out of saltwater, with the salt being a byproduct.

I reuse my salt water by recycling the reef water from my 210g into my 120g fowlr/softie tank. Just recycled 140 gallons last week. I figure the 120g with 90g seahorse refugium/sump has the dirtiest water so that is siphoned down the drain & the reef water is much cleaner so the 120g system now has better water in it, even though it is not new water.

I have joked with TomR for years that I wanted him to save his change water so I could recycle it in my tanks, but now I do it in-house:wink:

Been recycling the sw for over a year now, with no negative effects on my 120g system. I even have a Yellow Magnifica & a couple of Rose BTAs in the 120g & these anemones are doing great (the RBTAs even cloned).

Anthony