treating water using a filtration method questions

ok this is just an idea that popped into my head, rubbish away if you desire as we are all here to learn and i'd love to hear your views good or bad

ok most of us know that treating our tap water to remove chlorine, chloramines and metals is essential for fish keeping

so i know water if left out over a day or two will be removed of chlorine

chloramines are a different kettle of fish and are designed to stay in the water for longer, but does activated carbon filtration help in combatting this foe?

which brings me to the metals, would a crushed up magntic filter media remove all the metals commonly found in our waters? which also brings up a question, do our fish friends who live in rivers and lakes not come into contact wit these metals or simular?

so my idea, large water butt containing your weekly water left out over the course of the week while running a filter containing carbon and a magnetic media

I had put some notes on this in the thread……. www.irishfishkeepers.com/cms/component/o...it,10/limitstart,10/


The efficiency and the end products of using activated carbon depend on a number of things…..including pH.

Chloramines exist as either monochloramines, dichloramines or trichloramines…..these are pH dependant.

In general, at alkaline pH of 7 to 8.5, you’ll find that monochloramines predominate. These can be the most difficult to remove and are also the most (so I would believe….as I don’t actually test that effect myself) toxic to fish.

If the pH is dropped to an acidic pH then dichloramines will be tended towards.
These are much easier to remove by activated carbon.

The use of activated carbon will catalyse the production of ammonia…….so you’ll need something to remove ammonia (although in acid pH, the equilibrium between ammonia and ammonium will lie towards the much less toxic ammonium).

Chloramines will eventually decompose to form ammonia anyway at some stage in the future.

Magnets…..you’d need some special magnetic system at play to be of any use (maybe high magnetic resonance may allow some form of filtration……Star-Trek stuff maybe?)
Normal magnets may remove the element forms of iron or nickel, but compounds of normally magnetic metals are not necessarily magnetic.

Standing water is a good idea even after treatment with dechlorinators. Ideally, the water should be treated, then stood for a few days, then filtered over activated carbon to stabilise the water.
In reality, we find that addition of water conditioners that contain dechlorinators (for chlorine and chloramine) and metal chelators can work pretty much instantly.

Ian

Read this a a bit ago

www.rsc.org/chemistryworld/Issues/2005/August/Removing.asp

removing heavy metals from water


Mark

well there goes that theory of madness

but to stay on that note, do we know the active ingredient that nuetralizes the metal elements contained in water

cheers lads

edit: mark just pipped in as i wrote that last one

There are nunmber of chelators.

EDTA is a commonly used one (and used for years in many different fields).

Read up stress coat matey with higher doses, it does neutralise heavy metals.



Mark

There is a caution to be had with chelators for removing metals......they may also remove metal ions that you need.

I don't have any first hand data about what Stress Coat does with metals, but we know that many natural products are chelators (and one of the most powerful metal chelators is produced by our bacteria).

yeah ive used stress coat, just trying to figure out a way of eliminating the need to purchase such items, im pretty sure a lot more intelligent people have thought of this and im sure the easiest way is to just puchase the above or simular, but hey at least i got an interesting read out of it, here is a study of etda used on fish in relation to cadmium (***WARNING, CONTAINS DETAIL OF DECAPITATION OF FISH FOR SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH WHICH SOME READERS MIGHT FIND DISTURBING***) scialert.net/fulltext/?doi=jfas.2007.100.109&org=10

a well established treatment for water, apart from instantly removing ammonia chlorine it also helps the fish by assiting regeneration and provides an artificial temporary secretion slime coat to fish, removes heavy metals.

Doseage Ian is the meat of it, we want the water set to parameters safe for our fishies so its a case of knowing your water parameters before and after you treat it. This I fear is too much for the casual keeper to bother with as I have seen, hence the handy "recommended doses", adjustments are needed depending on water quality and content from each individual water source to keep things ideal for our fishie buddies no matter what te method. less that €20 a 1.9L, thousands of litres of hassle free (Almost) treatment for many different issues, a quality product I must say, way over priced here by our beloved lfs though.


Mark

I'm not going to open the link (as I'm not on my own PC at home...and one never knows whom might catch sight of decapitated fish). 

It is certainly cheaper and more convenient to buy the proprietary conditioners than it is to mix them up yourself. (and safer to you as well).

The science is great, but in practice…..even I buy Aqua Safe.

The magic spheres that are linked in a previous post here seems to be a throwback to the notion used in the first metal chelators…..that of the ‘mercaptans’ (sulphurous compounds = “mercury” “capturers”); so no real Star-Trek magic there.

Chlorophyll and haemoglobin are also metal chelating agents. I’m not suggesting that anyone uses blood that has stood for a few days as means to treat water though. !!!!

Ian

If you heard a pop that was my brain shorting out:)

An education as always, will have to hit the books now after this thread:)

Mark

EDIT: I have been now left with a thousand, probably silly, questions now.

Mark. wrote:

If you heard a pop that was my brain shorting out:)

An education as always, will have to hit the books now after this thread:)

Mark

EDIT: I have been now left with a thousand, probably silly, questions now.

Shall I suggest a book list for you for reading during the World Cup.

(Maybe more interesting than the World Cup!!!!)