Aging water
- Thread starter itstheantitang
- Start date
I do age my water. I mix and heat it for 24h, but as I understand it in an emergency as little as an hour or two is fine, just enough time to fully dissolve salt and aerate the water to make sure the pH is correct.
i use natural sea water, which has to be aged in the dark for 2 weeks, here is a post on what i do from RC.
I am currently using this on my 150 litre and i am having great results, i just thought i should share with others. i have seen so many post/threads say natural sea water is bad and should not be used, i disagree with that. the water that i collect is right next to the Marine Aquarium of Western Australia, fortunately for me they are happy for me to pull in and collect some water, i collect the water from here because it is filtered by a huge underground filter (thats what i am told) and quality is superb. to travel from our hose to the ocean takes 10 minutes and costs around $10 in fuel, me and my dad take about 20 minutes filling up 360 litres of water in 3 huge containers, covered with lids. We drive home and loose about 2 or so litres from each container, water is kept in the dark for atleast 2 weeks and before i perform a water change i run a air stone, for 24 hours. i am currently doing a 10% water change in my tank and i am saving a huge amount in Filtered fresh water and also in aquarium salt. I also brought a sample of the water into the lfs and got them to test it for everything, cost about $5, but i was interested, everything was perfect, calcium around 410 ppm, ammonia/nitrite and nitrate was all at 0, Ph was 8.3, Kh was 10-11, phosphate was 0, strontium was 8mg/Litre, iodine was 0.5mg/litre, iron was 0.05 mg/litre. to my knowledge all these are good, the only measurement i wasn't able to get was redox. Also the Specific Gravity does drop due to the evaporation of fresh water, i fix this before i do a water change, adding about 300 millimeters of fresh water per 20 litres of sea water. The freshwater i use is also from a rainwater tank, and is not filteres in any way, it is fresh from the sky and quality is also perfect, containing no silicate, phosphate or nitrate, this is the cheapest way i have found to do water changes in my tank, without loosing quality of water.
I am currently using this on my 150 litre and i am having great results, i just thought i should share with others. i have seen so many post/threads say natural sea water is bad and should not be used, i disagree with that. the water that i collect is right next to the Marine Aquarium of Western Australia, fortunately for me they are happy for me to pull in and collect some water, i collect the water from here because it is filtered by a huge underground filter (thats what i am told) and quality is superb. to travel from our hose to the ocean takes 10 minutes and costs around $10 in fuel, me and my dad take about 20 minutes filling up 360 litres of water in 3 huge containers, covered with lids. We drive home and loose about 2 or so litres from each container, water is kept in the dark for atleast 2 weeks and before i perform a water change i run a air stone, for 24 hours. i am currently doing a 10% water change in my tank and i am saving a huge amount in Filtered fresh water and also in aquarium salt. I also brought a sample of the water into the lfs and got them to test it for everything, cost about $5, but i was interested, everything was perfect, calcium around 410 ppm, ammonia/nitrite and nitrate was all at 0, Ph was 8.3, Kh was 10-11, phosphate was 0, strontium was 8mg/Litre, iodine was 0.5mg/litre, iron was 0.05 mg/litre. to my knowledge all these are good, the only measurement i wasn't able to get was redox. Also the Specific Gravity does drop due to the evaporation of fresh water, i fix this before i do a water change, adding about 300 millimeters of fresh water per 20 litres of sea water. The freshwater i use is also from a rainwater tank, and is not filteres in any way, it is fresh from the sky and quality is also perfect, containing no silicate, phosphate or nitrate, this is the cheapest way i have found to do water changes in my tank, without loosing quality of water.
cyberbeer65
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