experiment uas vs ro unit

[greenmachine]

I have set up a 10 gallon aquarium with nothing but tap water and a simple uas. I have tested the tds at 86 for day one. I will test the tds every day for 30 days or so to see if the scrubber will bring the number down. I see no reason the the algae should not purify the tap water. And as far as I can tell running a an air pump and 23watt cfl is cheaper than replacing rodi filters.?

[sabbath]

Did you dechlorinate the water?

[greenmachine]

no the water does not smell or taste of chlorine so my hope is that it will evaporate within the first day.

[inky]

what about the heavy metals, carbon etc. that are in tap water? The RO machince uses filters (membrane) to remove these. I don't see a scrubber of any kind doing this. It can never be pure H20

[kotlec]

Do you supply nutrients ? Algae would not grow well on tap water impurities alone I guess.

[SantaMonica]

Yes scrubbers remove metals. As for carbon, it depends what you mean by this.

[Floyd R Turbo]

Also tap water contains Chloramine which is chlorine and ammonia bonded together. This does not evaporate thus the proliferation of de-chlorinator additives. Algae produces Ascorbic Acid (Vitamin C) which breaks this bond, but I think if you put nothing but tap water across an existing algae screen it would kill it.

[Ace25]

TDS = Total Disolved Solids.. just one small part of the bad stuff in water. TDS doesn't take into account all the other things in the water like bacteria, phosphates, etc. 0 TDS doesn't mean pure H2O, just means really good H2O for what we can make at home. One good thing for me is that my city does not use Chloramines in the water, but my TDS out of the tap is in the 700-800 TDS range.

[greenmachine]

good points all. This is just an experiment and i don't think it would ever have a practical application,, but who knows.?.:)



I was also wondering if adding a cup of algae laden lake water to the tank would "seed" it?

please chime in. If this experiment is a "bust" then I will stop and save some kilo-watt hours :)

[greenmachine]

p.s. todays TDS reads 91 my guess is that the elevation is due to me not cleaning the tank and parts prior to use.