Snow - free soft water :-)

[L number Banana, posts: 2140]

I was trying to look on the bright side for all those people that got massive amounts of snow and it's making their life miserable.

Snow is wonderful for fishtank water - nice and soft and clean as long as you don't get it from your roof or some other possible contaminated source. Otherwise, get your extra buckets out and fill them up. Don't forget to put a lid on your buckets if you're storing it.

Has anyone melted it and tested their snow?

My snow all melted today What a rip off for a Canadian!

[MatsP]

There was a thread on Practical Fishkeeping with lots of people testing their melted snow. Mine was pH 5 or so and about 30 PPM TDS. Results were ALL OVER the place tho'. Some had very high pH, others low, nitrate present, even ammonia. None of this makes a whole lot of sense, but it's certainly worth testing your water before using it.

Oh, and you only get a tiny amount of water from a big pile of snow...

--
Mats

[exasperatus2002, posts: 215]

how it tests will depend on the local air quality. Do a search on acid rain we have a problem here in parts of Pennsylvania because of it.

[L number Banana, posts: 2140]

Hm, guess I'm just lucky here with very soft clean snow.

MatsP:

Oh, and you only get a tiny amount of water from a big pile of snow...

But it's free - like cheaper than RO water.

I guess the best is to collect that really heavy snow that make lots of water and test it first.

exasperatus2002:

how it tests will depend on the local air quality. Do a search on acid rain we have a problem here in parts of Pennsylvania because of it.

That's really sad, I thought the rules had changed with regards to acid rain. We used to have a real problem with that here. Killed hectares of trees and maple syrup businesses were wiped out but since the new rules came into effect in the 80's, we've had no problems (they had to put better scrubbers on smokestacks etc).
I'll have to test the rainwater in the summer too.

[Mike_Noren, posts: 1395]

Yeah, we've got tons of snow, and last winter I collected a 60 liter plastic container full of snow. I packed it as hard as I could and brought it inside to thaw. Discoveries made:

1) 60 liters of hard-packed snow takes almost a week to thaw in room temperature.

2) 60 liters of hard-packed snow gives you about 15 liters of water.

3) Even pristine snow collected where no one should have been may in fact contain cigarette butts.

It works, but to me it was more work than it was worth. Collecting rainwater during summer or buying an RO filter is much easier.

EDIT: I wouldn't worry too much about acidity. Measure the pH and adjust pH with hydroxide or a buffer - you'll need very little to counter the sulphide content of the meltwater.

[coelacanth, posts: 827]

Some had very high pH, others low, nitrate present, even ammonia.

Methinks they might have collected some yellow snow by accident....

[dw1305, posts: 332]

Hi all,
Snow is a very efficient remover of particulates (smoke, dust, ammonia etc.) from the atmosphere, particularly when it fall as large flakes at about 0oC.

This means that the melted snow may contain more solutes than you would expect in your local rain water. You can use this to your advantage if you live in an area with fluctuating temperatures as the rain that falls immediately after a snow fall will have very few solutes dissolved in it, and really will be almost pure H2O.

cheers Darrel