"Waste Water"?

[caspervtx]

I am just getting started. I live in Northeast Florida where the water table is relatively close to the surface and near to the St. Johns.
I realize we, responsible aquarists, are not do just dump livestock into the environment if we get tired of it or it grows too large or whatever. But what about "waste water" from the tanks. If we do 20% water changes - or worse given marine diseases - what is the position on ridding ourselves of the water byproduct of the hobby?
Casper

 

[flower]

Water evaporates, salt does not...I use my waste water on my driveway and sidewalks to kill the plants that grow in the cracks. The salt is harmless to the environment and allot better than the chemicals they sell for that purpose.
I read somewhere that water treatment plants use salt to clean water in its process. So it can't be all that bad.

 

[salt life]

Originally Posted by CasperVTX
http:///forum/post/3077732
I am just getting started. I live in Northeast Florida where the water table is relatively close to the surface and near to the St. Johns.
I realize we, responsible aquarists, are not do just dump livestock into the environment if we get tired of it or it grows too large or whatever. But what about "waste water" from the tanks. If we do 20% water changes - or worse given marine diseases - what is the position on ridding ourselves of the water byproduct of the hobby?
Casper
Can you explain the part about "or worse given marine diseases"?
I'm not sure what you mean by that.

 

[flower]

Originally Posted by Salt Life
http:///forum/post/3078096
Can you explain the part about "or worse given marine diseases"?
I'm not sure what you mean by that.

I think the OP meant that if we flush water down the drain or on the ground that if there is disease from sick fish, will it hurt the enviroment?

 

[caspervtx]

Originally Posted by Flower
http:///forum/post/3078114

I think the OP meant that if we flush water down the drain or on the ground that if there is disease from sick fish, will it hurt the enviroment?
Yes that is it exactly. Lets persume we have a QT and we "eradicate" ich or some such. What do we do with the water. Where I live is very close to the water table and anything we expend is reasonably expected to get to the St. Johns and out to the Atlantic.
In another post on another board I read someone say that any Marine life caught at teh beach and put into an aquarium with lifestock from elsewhere should not be returned to the Ocean as it could bring something with it that is not local.
Now I'm fairly sure that in the QT scenario we have truly eradicated the "pest" - but if you use a QT for isolation and then clean the water out for the next arrival - it is possible for some critter to get out.
I am probably examining it way too intensely. My thoughts based on Flower's response is that by the time the "organisms" got to the water table (after being used for weed killing

) they would have been out of a salt water environment so long they would have perished.
But its a thought and a consideration
Casper
BTW Thanks for the responses.

 

[scsinet]

Very few, if any, marine based lifeforms - including pathogens and parasites - can survive in a freshwater environment such as ground water, and that's if it even manages to get there in the first place.
It would have to travel through some amount of soil, which contains enough chemistry altering properties to render the water uninhabitable to anything living in it long before it reaches the water table, and that's even if it stays together long enough to support life. Most likely it would be diluted in the soil enough to prevent anything from surviving.
If you are concerned about it, you can dispose of it in a public sewer by flushing it down the toilet. The public sewer systems are designed to handle pathogens because "human waste" is full of them.
Alternatively, a tablespoon of bleach dosed into every bucket of water a few minutes before you dump it should be enough to kill anything in that bucket.

 

[katsafados]

When you pour soemthing down the drain, its chemically treated at the water plant??? then reused.
So I doubt that fish diseases will withstand all the chemicals plus uv filtration ect.

 

[caspervtx]

Originally Posted by SCSInet
http:///forum/post/3078483
If you are concerned about it, you can dispose of it in a public sewer by flushing it down the toilet. The public sewer systems are designed to handle pathogens because "human waste" is full of them.
I would if I had a public sewer

I have a septic tank
But I do like the bleach idea. Even if its a near impossibility, with my luck ..............

 

[scsinet]

Yeah you definitely don't want to pour down the septic tank. I have one too. I'm of the school of thought that all that salt isn't exactly good for it.
My water table is far below the ground level where I live, so I just pour it out in the yard.

 

[deejeff442]

i just got done dumping 50 gallons in the yard.
i have a septic but dont trust what it will do to the bio in it.