Free Distill water?

[Xtrader]

I wonder the water disharged from the aircon can be use for our aquarium?

[Tigger]

Are u sure the water discharge by the air-con is distill water?

[w3ish3ng]

well, heard it from one of the bro that the water from nitrate is very high in nitrate. you might wanna test it

[arcanehacker]

Why would you want to risk? Its probably mixed with lots of dirt and dust.

Its one thing to save $$ and another thing to be stingy. These kind of things I'd rather not risk. Unless you have all sortta test kits to test for what ever substance that may be in there.

[jervismun]

I'm afraid there will be a high percentage of metal elements in there too not to mention eventual rust... somewhere... somehow... IMO don't risk it... I rather use tap water (which is what I'm using!!!)

[coyote66]

I have heard that rain water is distilled water.

But when collecting you have make sure that the rain water do not have any contact with any metal parts.

Meaning, it must be collected from an open area using a plastic container.

Not rain water flowing down from the roof or gutter pipe.

Anyone can comment on this.

[tineng]

hahaha...bro, i think you got to go for science class already....by the time rain water fail downs, it already mixed with pollutants in the air....

[gny]

Condensate fr aircon better not used!

You don't know what's in the water.

It also depends very much on condition of the aircon unit...

I use tap water since day one.

Tested with Redsea NO3 test kit.

Its 5ppm.

OK for me

[FionaFiona]

No need to talk too much into the sciences and chemistry aspects of the evaporated water from aircon units. practically speaking...

1) how much water can you collect from the aircon every nite?

2) versus how much tank water do you change everytime?

3) then how long do you need to collect this amount of water from the aircon? weeks? months?

its not practical.

[madmac]

I have heard that rain water is distilled water.

But when collecting you have make sure that the rain water do not have any contact with any metal parts.

Meaning, it must be collected from an open area using a plastic container.

Not rain water flowing down from the roof or gutter pipe.

Anyone can comment on this.

I've used rain water for a while. Not nowadays. I've tested pH of the rain collected, after about 15 minutes of good heavy downpour, its about 5.68, so thats pretty acidic. I don't have a TDS meter, but rain water was used to topup my evaporated loss, as a kalk solution for several months until I gotten myself a RO/DI unit. Kalk powder dissolves very well with rain when compared with tap water. Tap always gives me a great deal of residual kalk left over undissolved. I attribute this mainly to the acidity of the water. As far as corals are concern, I find that even if there were dissolve pollutants in rain, it won't be as bad as dissolve metals in tap water.

So between rain and tap water, I'll go for rain anytime. Trouble with the harvesting rain water is, don't do it when you're not around. And thats the difficult part, you'll have to wait for the first heavy to go, and then hope that theres more rain to fill the buckets you have. It has to be open collected and you have to some form of storage to keep the water collected, until the next heavy rain comes. andsometimes it jus doesn't rain, for weeks on end. Also to collect, its very dependent of the layout of your home... so no more rain water for me... too much and too old.

[ming69]

What about water from de-humidifier? I get about 5l of those everyday.

I suppose it is water collected from the air through condensation.

[arcanehacker]

I have heard that rain water is distilled water.

But when collecting you have make sure that the rain water do not have any contact with any metal parts.

Meaning, it must be collected from an open area using a plastic container.

Not rain water flowing down from the roof or gutter pipe.

Anyone can comment on this.

Every heard of acid rain? For us living in a place highly polluted with different fumes, you think the rain is good? Yeah, maybe no metal parts but what about all the polluted air it collects on the way down?

Unless we are living in some jungle with no or very little factories around. Water then may be good enough.

[arcanehacker]

What about water from de-humidifier? I get about 5l of those everyday.

I suppose it is water collected from the air through condensation.

ever wonder how it works? Reverse osmosis or chemical? If its pure osmosis then maybe.

[Tanzy]

I wonder the water disharged from the aircon can be use for our aquarium?

Very high risk of introducing copper laden water into the tank.

Don't do it.

[jervismun]

Every heard of acid rain? For us living in a place highly polluted with different fumes, you think the rain is good? Yeah, maybe no metal parts but what about all the polluted air it collects on the way down?

Unless we are living in some jungle with no or very little factories around. Water then may be good enough.

Agree totally... don't forget the ever damaging haze due to forest fires in parts of Indonesia and Malaysia... personally, don't think rain water is the way to go unless you have powderful filtration system to get rid of the pollutants right away... which makes using tap water just as good.

For me...

#1 RO/DI water

#2 Tap water

I'm living in a new condo in Woodlands Ave 2, tap water NO3 5ppm... easily removed by my Nitratreductor 1000... but if you guys staying in old developments and old HDB... beware of metal from rusted pipes and plumbings

[madmac]

Yes. I've mentioned above that I tested the pH. It was at 5.68. If 5.68 is not acidic then I don't know what is. Look at it this way, if the effluent pH in CRs are peg at 6.5 there abouts, then rain at 5.7 is very acidic. This explains why coral skeleton rubble collected at the beaches look so rounded.

BUT, rain is natural, you get them in places where tropical corals grow. If corals don't get hurt by rain, which sometimes go on for severals hours, then a little rain water won't hurt your tank either. Collecting them after 15 minutes of heavy downpour would give you pretty good water. Rain, being very pure, is highly reactive, so most pollutants/particulates get carried away by the first fall.

The thing about pipe water is the chloramine and metals(most use copper pipes) thats difficult to rid off. NO3 at 5 PPM is nothing a good tank can't handle, its organic. Alot has to do with how much your adding each time. If you top up 1l for a 150 l tank, its no issue. If you use it for water change and do say 20% then thats pretty significant change.

[jervismun]

Now only I stay in a landed property to collect rainwater

Oh bros... be careful with water containment... recently they do a lot of spotchecks for Aedes Larvae