# House Water filtering question



## Warhawk (Feb 23, 2014)

So work is slow and I'm sitting here thinking about ways to make my fish room nicer and less work. So I thought about improving my water change system but wanted to bounce the idea off some of you guys/gals.

So my local tap water has Chlorine in it and I use prime to remove that. I have seen other people set up automatic water changing but with the chlorine I can't just set up a automatic water change system because I would have to remove the chlorine first. Would something like this work to make the water safe for the tanks? http://www.amazon.com/Camco-40631-Pr...hlorine+filter The filter should remove anything harmful to the fish but I have read that the fish and plants need some of the minerals to be left in the water. I have also read that RO water isn't good for fish because it lacks those things they need. ( I know the filter is not a RO system)

I think I could sale my wife on the idea of adding one to our house and just tap in for the tanks. Saving me a bottle of prime every month would be a nice benefit also.


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## Embouck7 (Jan 11, 2015)

I feel like thats a tall order cuz now you have to pay to put those minerals back in, the only place that carries something like that for me at least charges 2x the price of prime...... Some people mix their tap water with half RO water, but for you that would get out of control fast..... This is due to your autochange requiring a holding tank to do half and half.


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## Warhawk (Feb 23, 2014)

You bring up a good point and a reason I'm asking here, I don't know enough about the water minerals to know what is good and bad. There are a lot of different filters but anything small enough to remove the chlorine would also take minerals. 

It would be really nice to just put a hose in the tank and turn it on allowing the water to over flow so my water level doesn't drop in the tank. I would still have to vac but that isn't a big deal.


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## Tolak (Nov 13, 2012)

Look into carbon block filters, they will remove chlorine & chloramine without removing minerals like a RO filter would. Problem is, when you factor in filter cost & replacement cartridge cost it ends up being more expensive than Prime. A short term dose of disinfectants doesn't harm fish or bio filtration, you have to be aware of what your water department does when & why though. Most of my tanks are drilled with overflows for water changes, untreated tap goes in, timed out at GPM, when the overflows are done doing their thing the tanks get a shot of Prime. This could be anywhere from a few minutes to maybe a half hour, depending on what I'm doing while water is running.

I've seen people do holding tanks with a pump on a timer, this is generally done with reconstituted RO, no reason you couldn't do the same with tap & Prime. I recall seeing one online some time back where there was a lot of loft room in a garage, the tubs went above, gravity fed so no pump involved. 

At this time most of the tanks are a hang a hose deal, though I did do up a 3 tank spray bar that works on a few racks. If you scroll about half way down here you'll see a few pics of it in action; http://tolak.net/Angels.php

Next step is hard piping some pvc to tanks so I really just have to switch a hose between connectors to do banks of tanks. I'm sure I could do the whole thing with valved to control banks or racks, knowing how things go a trial run for a bit with connectors could save some re-piping.

If you find a good deal on a carbon block filter & cheap cartridges go for it. A buddy with a 100+ tank angel breeding setup got a killer deal on this huge commercial unit, the size of a large welding tank. It's been running for years, he tests the chlorine levels, still zero. If you have one of these running long term you do have to back flush them to disinfect them, as the water coming out, as well as water in the filter itself has no disinfectants, perfect place for bacteria to grow.


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## Warhawk (Feb 23, 2014)

Thanks for the info and the link, I'm about a third of the way down the page but have to get some work done so I will come back to it. 

I'm going to do more research on filters it would make my job easier for sure.


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## pop (Aug 29, 2012)

Hello :
Will splashing the water allow the removal of chlorine & chloramine by evaporation into the air?
Are chemicals necessary?
pop


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## Warhawk (Feb 23, 2014)

pop said:


> Hello :
> Will splashing the water allow the removal of chlorine & chloramine by evaporation into the air?
> Are chemicals necessary?
> pop



My local water only has chlorine so yes I could do allow the water to "age" with a air stone and it would be safe for the tanks.

I could drip water into a 55g barrel allow it to age and then pump it into a over head system that would drip into the tanks. I'm going to install a central drain system for all my tanks to make water changes faster but if I do the central drip system would be adding another step the process and it is do able just need to work out how much trouble it would be saving me.


If you have chloramine you need more than just "age" the water.


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## pop (Aug 29, 2012)

Hello :
I think there is a difference between splashing and aging. I take it that you might penetrate the floor and foundation for a grey or french drain or are you going to connect to existing water removal structures?
There is an interesting aspect about your process for changing water since you can think about the process as the water used to fill one tank also provides the energy for emptying the next tank in the tank bank. I think there might be pumps that operate this way.
pop


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## Warhawk (Feb 23, 2014)

My rough plan is to set up a 55g barrel as a holding tank, PVC pipe above my tanks with drip lines to each tank, each tank will have over flows that will drain into my fish room drain system, and the fish room drain system drains into the main house drain system thru the utility sink.

I could then pump the holding tank into the PVC pipe above the tanks, my pump would pump more water than I would be dripping so the extra water would flow back down into the holding tank. That should keep the water moving and help get the chlorine out. 

The only problem as I see it is how much water I would need. With my current 10 tanks each getting 4 gallons each I would need 40g of water ready to go, I want to add more tanks so I would have to have 150-200 gallons of water ready to go. That could be a huge issue because I don't know where I could really keep that much water and how much of a pain it's going to be vs just doing normal water changes and adding Prime. Going to keep kicking the idea around but it might be a few months out.


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## pop (Aug 29, 2012)

Hello;
Sounds like you have a plan that will bring you great success.
pop


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