Save some of the water from water changes for cleaning equipment

[Jan]

I decided to save some of the water from my water change yesterday. I don't know why but I saved about 5 gallons of it. This morning, as I do every morning, I was checking out my tank and decided it was time to clean the powerheads. I let them soak in vinegar then srubbed them inside and out and picked out all the yuck that wont come out or off with sctrubbing. In the past I would take about 2 gallons of RO/DI water and rinse everything. This time I used the water that I changed out of my tank. I let powerhead sit running in a pail with about 2 gallons of the used water. Then I rinsed again and placed the powerhead back into my display. I didn't have to use my RO/DI water for cleaning and rinsing.

[lanman]

I always have 5-10 gallons of 'used' water sitting around. Great for rinsing things, a nice place to put algae that I pick out of the tanks, etc. AND - it's there in case you have an accident that spills a few gallons of water out onto the floor!

 

Which reminds me - that carpet hanging on the deck railing is probably dry by now...

 

bob

[Hilary]

Which reminds me - that carpet hanging on the deck railing is probably dry by now...

 

Been there....

 

Great idea, Jan! Think green! (Not to mention the time it takes to make the darn RODI!)

[traveller7]

Good post

 

After the detritus settles, the water is great for hatching brine, cleaning/scrubbing that scungy liverock, rinsing those sponge filters in your clown breeder tanks, etc.

 

Definitely nice to have some "used" saltwater around; unless you are flowerseller, his water is so clean, he can sell it fellow reef keepers for water changes :D

[treesprite]

I always do it.

 

unless you are flowerseller, his water is so clean, he can sell it fellow reef keepers for water changes :D

About 80% of the huge water change I did in my clown tank recently actually came from the main system, so I wouldn''t have a mini cycle in the clown tank. The main system isn't perfect, but is dosed with Prodibio, and combined with 20% new mix cut the clown tank nitrate down drastically in just 2 days. Once my main system gets to where I really want it, I'm going to start combining water from it with new mix for the clown tank water changes - it will give me the benefit of Prodibio in both tanks without added cost, and will conserve water and salt (clown tank nutrient import is about double that of the main system, skimmer is nowhere near as productive, and it has no DSB).

[Origami]

Good idea, Jan. Thanks!

[flowerseller]

Thanks for another great idea Janloise!