Water From A Dehumidifier?

[fishdudein]

When I was a kid, I know that my mom used to use water from her dehumidifier as a substitute for "distilled" water when she did her ironing. I got to thinking the other day about this. I currently buy my RO water, has made a BIG difference in my SW tanks (I was told originally that I could just use tap water ). But if I were to invest in a dehumidifier, which would help with humidity issues in my fishroom, could I also use the water from that to top off and/or mix new saltwater? (Trying to find alternatives to buying my own RO unit) Has anybody else ever tried using this method? "Sounds" like it might work, but dunno .

 

[sammydee]

If the plastic in the dehumidifier is safe, I can't see a problem with it.

 

[Navarre]

My friend used a dehumidifier in a room with his tank and it practically sucked the tank dry!
The devices are designed to remove water... thats what it did

Although it might collect pure water from evaporation from the tank, it might also collect airborn particles of things like polish, hair spray, dust etc.. these could carry toxins and i would be very wary of using water collecteed in this method

 

[fishdudein]

Good point Navarre.
My fish room is totally detached from my house, and I absolutely don't use any aerosols or chemicals at all out there, try to do everything "environment friendly" for the fish...however, I guess you never can really tell what might be in the air anyway. I operate around 40 tanks at the moment, room temperature stays between 75-80F, so there is quite a bit of evaporation going on anyway...do you still think a dehumidifier would cause more water to evaporate? I was wondering, too, if anyone knew what kind of coils they used for the water to condense on...kinda hard to tell in the store, unless they let you take the thing apart ...if they are made from copper, that would be a bad thing, I'm sure.

 

[sammydee]

Well a dehumidifier would make the air dryer, so yes, more water would evaporate.

 

[Navarre]

If it forms over copper then i would definately not use it. I wuld imagine it would have to be copper or stainless steel. with copper being cheaper (i think) then i would imagine its likely to be a material used.

 

[fishdudein]

OK then, I think that probably makes my mind up...not worth taking a chance on any of my fish to save a few bucks, end up losing big time in the long run! Thanks for your help, sometimes I get these ideas that sound "half good" and I need to bounce the idea around to figure out the "other" half!