Wasted water solution
 

Hi,

First post. Nice forum!!

I've got a 55 gallon brackish water tank housing three puffers (2 GSPs and one F8) and three Mono's (yellow/black/silver ones) and one pathetic piece of live rock (that stuff is expensive so I only got one sad chunk for now).

I have a Eheim professional filter.

I have one $50 powerhead.

What I'm wondering is how to not waste 5 gallons of water a week doing water changes? I hate pulling out 5 gallons and dumping it down the toilet. It probably also costs a lot.

What I was thinking about was setting up a mangrove farm to push the water through every week. By push I mean buckets as I'm not savvy nor financially able to set up much else than I've got going at the moment.

My plan was to get three 5 gallon vases with a bunch of mangroves in each and have them being emptied at one week intervals so each 5 gallons sits with the mangroves for three weeks. Or something bigger like a 15 gallon vase and just take out 5 gallons a week and replace with the dirty water.

Am I nuts? Does this make any sense?

I need some decorations around the house - so I thought some clear planters or vases or something would be decorative. I don't really want another aquarium sitting by a window just for plants. I think it looks "to aquariumy" however if I can't find anything I might just end up doing that. However, to avoid that I'd like vases or decorative items to look more attractive.

What I think would be really cool is a long glass vase like this

http://ep.yimg.com/ca/I/bevfabriccrafts_2115_738902774

But obviously a bit bigger as the volume of that one is only 2.6 gallons.

Is this a ridiculous idea? Any suggestions?

Thanks

Let me know how the project goes. I like mangroves and was thinking of a solution to have it by the window without plumbing it into my tank. I change 40 gallons of water every week, but usually a friend comes by and grabs 20 gallons a week to use for his water changes. I'm quite intrigued by your idea and am tagging along.

Wookie that seems like a good idea. Would you have to keep the water heated for mangroves?
You will probably grow lots of algae as well.

Oh my. That's a lot of water. Do you just dump it?


Regarding the hear, I'm hoping not. Trying to learn as much as I can about them, don't really know much at this stage. Wasn't just going to sort of jump in and see how it goes. I don't know about the algae either lol.

Oh and I know someone will ask why I don't just keep them in the tank. At some point they'll grow out of the tank and I think that would just look messy. Open top, etc.

Thanks for the replies. Hopefully someone will have some ideas for us.

I'd like this - but out of a glass brackish water filled vase

http://www.beachbeans.com/images/man..._patio_pot.gif

Here we go, this on a large scale, minus the beta and a lot more plants

http://www.beachbeans.com/images/man...lass_block.gif

If my friend is available during my water change, he'll take 20 gallons, the other 20 gallons goes into the toilet.

It would be perfect to use for a mixed or softy tank water change, but I'm not about to run another system.

So I'm with you on finding a good solution for my waste water.

Maybe find a neighbour and get him hooked on the hobby so I can give away my water.

Mangroves would be awesome though!

This site looks good for learning about them. Might have been posted in this forum already.

http://mangroven.at/mangrove/english...hp#suesswasser

Is the waste water really ok to use for water change on another system?? I've never heard of or thought of this.. Interesting..

That is a good read. Thanks

Plants
 

Water your household plants.

The water is brackish.... not full on salt. Cant be using that much salt in your system.

Also.... 5 gallons a week????? If you have a lot of pollutants in your tank maybe you are over feeding.

With a good filter and with good feeding habits you should be able to go a month on a 55 without doing a water change.

I never water change more than once a month.

I really like the idea as I'm running something similar but I don't know how well a separate system will work for filtration purpose.

The reason for water changes is two fold, first to remove contaminants but we also do water changes to replace major and minor elements depleted out of the water. Placing waste water in a mangrove tank will take care of a large portion of the contaminants but if anything it will actually deplete those essential elements even more.

If you would like to increase the time between water changes what about plumbing your mangrove tank right into your system? This way the mangroves are supplied with a fresh supply of waste to process. Another problem you might run into with a separate system is that the water might actually become an anoxic, this could result in the production of Hydrogen sulfide and adding this water back into the tank could cause some problems.

This tank is plumbed into my 350g system, currently has about 150 mangroves in it and man do they grow fast!

http://img25.imageshack.us/img25/2010/p1130217.jpg

I'm also running what I consider a "Cheato River", which is pretty much your exact design just a little longer with a bulkhead to tie it into the system. When I have frags they go in here, otherwise it's full of cheato.

http://img686.imageshack.us/img686/5868/p1120179.jpg