Reefing during a serious drought. Any tips for water conservation?

Edp251 · Aug 14, 2020

Hey All,

Looking out upon my brown and heat shocked lawn and recently got another robo-call from the Weir River water authority listing our new restrictions and wondering what we reefers should be considering.

RODI units can waste a lot of water but I have my waste line plumbed to a barrel that I can use to water our garden via bucket brigade. Are there other things you all are doing that may be less wasteful?

The other thing I am wondering about is recycling water from water changes. My main DT is sps dominant. I do 12% water charges weekly. The water is quite clean at 8.6 dkh, 0.03 phosphates and nitrates at 5. I am now using the waste from my sps dominant DT as the clean water for my quarantine/hospital tank. Am I missing something in doing this?
Thanks in advance for your thoughts!

laverda · Aug 14, 2020

You could add a second RO membrane. Otherwise sounds like your doing pretty good. Better than most I suspect. I have two 55 gallon drums to collect waste water. I use my wast water for cleaning my filter sock, watering the garden and cleaning aquarium stuff.

User1 · Aug 14, 2020

So I live in Northern California. Similar situations with cyclical weather and droughts. Mother Nature is an interesting woman. Anyway in the lean or improperly planned years I will collect natural sea water. I'll make a day or weekend out of it. Head down to Monterey, do one or two beach dives, get a good dinner, then on the way home collect some water and use that. Saves water, money, and I get a day of diving in.

It is like the trifecta of awesome. Anyway if you are near the ocean you could always try that. If you are uneasy of using natural sea water you could always collect it, let it sit for a week or so, and then do some tests and buffer to match your tanks parameters.

The only issue I had in California is that we can't collect water in marine parks or reserves. Everything else is fine as long as we keep it to household use. I reached out to the state water resource control board and they passed it around internally before getting back to me. 50 to 100 gallons is fine. Can't bring in a semi

Other than that maybe go an additive based solution / balling. Triton or DSR. I guess there is also Tropic Marin and Red Sea. You are basically topping off evaporation then adding back in nutrient / elements via additives. Possible option with no water changes.