Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Air conditioner condensation water is almost the same as rain water. They both come from the moisture in the air. My dogs seem to like it more then house tap water (sigh) lol. So will it be safe for the fish ? The plan was, free water to top off the tanks.

thanks again eddy

Me and my brother always drank from the A/C hose.... I think Im alright

.... I think I'll stick to rainwater then...

Hi Eddy

Ignore these two idiots above my post - the water from that should be fine.

The heat exchangers in most aircons that I know are aluminium. While most people think aluminium is bad, in this state it is always coated in a thin, clear layer of aluminium oxide which is about as reactive and soluble as a diamond.

I don't know enough about airconditioning, but Legionella pathogens thrive in (certain) large A/C systems, so I'd still be a bit careful about the condensate without further research.

In submarines where water was scarce at the best of times, condensate was still directed to bilge.


Scott

Those are evaporative air cons so it's a different thing.

As far as I could tell, Eddy was talking about a refrigerated system, so there's no difference between what condenses on the outside of the heatsink of that and what condenses on the outside of a cold glass of beer.

Infact that use similar technologies to produce water from air in water dispensers don't they?

I was assuming an evaporative system discharge. My AC goes through heaps of water when it's running, I pipe the discharge under the dirt garden beds along the north side of the house (when it's hot enough to run the AC, it's hot enough to give the sun-facing plants an extra drink). I certainly wouldn't drink this discharge.

I'm not sure how much water one might recover from a domestic refrigerated AC unit, but I doubt it would be that much in comparison?

"Refrigerated air conditioners are not associated with cases of Legionnaires' disease." says VicHealth.

Legionnaires is only an issue in evaporative coolers where a continuous supply of warm fresh water provides a suitable home for the bacteria to flourish, if dirt and organic matter collects in the system.

No risk whatsoever from refrigerated AC.

+1
Drink the water
Drain it into the FT

Except for the bit about 'in this state'
Aluminium is almost ALWAYS coated in oxide. Hence why it's hard to weld, and won't stay polished.
Aluminium oxide coats the aluminium as soon as oxygen touches it, and as chilidude mentioned, it's insoluble, hence why aluminium is said to not rust. The aluminium rust protects it from rusting.
It's not a coating added by manufacturers, unless it's anodised aluminium, which is done to thicken the coating for hardness.
Aluminium is fine, unless a raided or consumed, or dissolved in acid and consumed, or rubbed on the skin.

Using/producing water from this method of production has been used for a while
especially by the US Army and Navy.
They are usually known as (AWG) Atmospheric Water Generators and can be purchased
for both domestic and commercial use.

However, they all have one thing in common:



ref: http://www.treehugger.com/clean-water/t ... -from.html

I've seen one of these units and it had the UV light plus a particle filter.

If you google Atmospheric Water Generators you can see what's around.

Personally if I was going to drink it I would boil it first, but I would just dump it into the fish tank.


cheers Lou

Thanks KP, bad wording on my part.

What I meant was "in this form" i.e. sheet aluminium ( in contrast to a dissolved form such aluminium carbonate).

My air conditioner heat exchangers is made-out of copper. Here in south FL we run the AC about year around, it's hot we are in the low 90F atm and it's only June lol. The AC is giving little over 1/2gal.. a day. A UV light would be a great add-on. I do flush the AC drain with beach once a month to keep it clean.

Copper, really ?

It must be coated in something to stop it corroding though !

+1 on the uv filter!