! defrost water from the refrigerator !

[kostasonia]

In a book called "The complete aquarium guide" and in page 22 I read that the defrost water from the refrigerator has zero or very low hardness and pH close to neutral.

Does anybody have an opinion on this??

 

[Guest]

i have read somewhere that the water from your furnace or ac is the same way. the vent pipe on my furnace leaked so i placed a bucket to collect it and would water the plants with it.

edit:
my fridge is frost free.

 

[kostasonia]

yes, I´ve read it too about the AC. Anyway it would result much easier for me to put water in the freezer and just take it out, put some conditioner and have a wonderful water!!

 

[Apocalypse_Gold]

I would say that it depends on how clean your air is, or how clean your freezer (or furnace/ac) is. Condensation cleans stuff out of the air. I wouldn't use water from an a/c or unit either. The condenser pipes and ducts are not intended to be food grade. You can always test water that you have collected.
Kostasonia, what they mean by defrost water is water from the ice that builds up in the freezer. Since it comes from the air it has less salt and minerals.
You could theoretically freeze water to clean-ness by rinsing ice cubes. The salt and minerals are often excluded as the ice freezes (have you ever licked the top of an ice cube?). Successive freezings would increase the effect. The better option is to get an ro/di filter.

 

[kostasonia]

mmm...I see, I think I understand..What about boiling it and condensing it again???

 

[bigmac1878]

i don't have experience with A/C water, but i can't see why you shouldn't use it, providing that you test it for all the usual stuff first.

i'd like to re-iterate, i don't have experience with A/C water.

 

[hashbaz]

I have never taken apart an AC but I would assume that you would find a lot of grease, oil, dust, grime and rust. None of these would show up on your test kit. Tasting would be a more accurate way to measure these pollutants.

Boiling and condensing water is probably the purest water you can get. But the energy costs would be enormous - and it would be a lot of work.

For anything larger than a 5 gallon tank I would highly recommend getting a RO/DI filter if you really need "pure" water.

 

[PutAwayWet]

I think another thing to keep in mind is the small amount that both these source are going to put out. Most freezers are frost-free today, we've had a chest freezer for 15 years and I bet we've never removed even a full bucket of ice. You might do better with an AC unit, but you would have to live in a high heat/humidity area and run it constantly. The water is just the condensation off the coils. I whole house AC unit usually has it's drain piped back into the house's drains. You have to cut and modify it... could be a pain. A window unit that just drip outside would be getting dirt and bugs in it... messy!

I can't imagine getting enough to make it worth while.

 

[7Enigma]

The biggest problem with this idea is the mold/mildew that is present in a lot of AC and referigeration units. I wouldn't want that in my tank. And by boiling and recondensing the water you are just distilling it. MUCH cheaper to just buy distilled water than go through all the work, energy, and time of distilling...