reusing saltwater

so it kind of hurts my wallet thinking im literally throwing hundreds of liters of water down the tubes...

here is a little hypothetical question for you folks.

what if.....i were to transfer the 100 liters of water i change into a separate container with macro algae, once they hit zero i supplement that water with calcium mag and other trace elements to get the levels back up, then it should be ready for use no?

any other ideas what one can do with the saltwater from a water change?

 

Personally I would say no cause in that container you would have a cycle start since you will have organic waste. On top of that you would still want to heat the water need light for the macro algae and water movement on there for it to properly filter out nitrates also add the electric up with the supplements your proballely already spent as much as a bag of salt cost. Thats just me ill wait and see what everyone else says

 

I have read somewhere that salts contain certain elements that we can't add. But I believe that doing water changes are still more beneficial than just dosing the water. If your gonna do that then why bother changing it. Just add a fuge to eat the waste & dose what you need.

 

yea been doing some more reading online seems the only use of used saltwater is killing pesky weeds in the garden, there must some more use for it though

 

Well your pretty much talking about not doing a water change. Because after your first time then you won't be adding new salt. Your just supplementing your water. If you want to avoid wasting water just add a refugium to your tank with chaeto & that will eat your waste. Look up " no water changes". Others have done this with success but your just adding ca, mg & trace elements to your tank. I'm sure it's much more involved than that. I'm a believer in water changes. I don't wanna have to add all the chemicals my self.

 

Use the saltwater to kill weeds? Hmmm, I have lots of mulch beds surrounding some apple trees. Would it be safe for the trees?

 

I wouldn't put saltwater anywhere on the ground. The salt gets trapped & contaminates the soil. Especially near plants that make food for us to eat.

 

I do water changes to LOWER the elements that build up in the system from feeding the tank, more than to replace anything.
It's probably hard to find now, but some years back on RC, they tested tank water from various hobbyists and found much elevated levels of many elements, indicating that even partial water changes were still allow them to build up.

As for dumping on weeds and such, eventually the ground will not grow anything, even what you want to grow there.

 

It's honestly not that much if you have a smallish tank. I have a 100 gallon total water system and do 20 percent monthly. So 20 gallons... The 5 gallon red sea salt should last me about 10 months. It's only $80.

 

Wow!! And I thought my I.O. salt here in Canada was expensive at $35 a 200g box.