recycling tank water through r/o unit

[Ness]

thinking of trying to recycle my tank water by filtering all the nasties out and pumping it through a r/o unit?
has anyone tried this? is it worth doing or a waste of time and effort?

[goldenpigeon]

it is a good idea, and would probably work... the only problem is its probably more hassle than its worth. used tank water would clog your r./o cartridges quickly unless you put the water through a prefilter process before going into the r/o.

worth a try i guess :)

[Ness]

was thinkin of workin down through a series of filters down to a 0.5 micron filter before goin through the r/o.

[scott bowler]

it sounds like a good idea ,but you will loss about 1/2 if not more of the water in waste .it would also take about a day to get about 200lts at the most .but i ike the thinking need to keep working on things like that

[Ben]

might find it will not get rid of all the nitrates aswell.....?

[Ness]

what about pumping the water out into a dam and then recycle by this means?

[apistodiscus]

IMO, not worth it since the minimum pressure required for most RO units is three bar. And you will only get about 1/4 of the water you pump in returned as RO water. You would have to pre-filter your aquarium water first anyway or you will ruin the RO membrane. I appreciate that water is probably quite expensive in Australia (it's free in Ireland and at the moment we are getting plenty of it from the heavens. Another soft day :D ) but even at that I don't think it's worth your while