Water usage

[teflon]

Hey just wondering how everybody gathers water to use for waterchanges??

Does anybody have an advanced method of doing so? especially for people with bigger tanks because water restrictions are going to become super tight.

cheers

Adam

[Ash]

I'm looking into water change avoidance techniques eg: supplimental plant filtration.

Dumping about 600l on the lawn every fortnight can't be good for anything other than my lawn

I've thought about setting up a grey water tank to water the garden with - old tank water could be pumped into it as well so it gets a 2nd use.

regarding gathering water - could ya set up your roof drain into a rainwater tank?

I mean you have to buffer for Africans anyway, tho I dunno how poluted rain water is there - but lets face it, where does the drinking water come from?

To me ideal setup is a combination of all 3.

If you had an outdoor/garage/shed fishroom with a central sump, you could have it plumbed into an outdoor "topless" or clear topped tank with plants growing in it. Think endless loop with no nitrates ever!!

Then you have the grey water & rainwater tanks beside it for waterchanges in either direction, if you ever even needed them.

My eventual plan under my house is similar to this.

only limitation is what other metabolic/hormonal wastes are there to worry about & how do you test for them?

[BaZ]

The water for my tanks comes from the tap, and the water I drain from my tanks goes on the garden. I figure we're allowed to water the garden during certain times, so I'm merely 'borrowing' that water for a week or 3 before it hits the garden

When doing water changes I use a long hose and syphon the water out onto various sections of the garden or lawn. Ideally, I'd like to install a rainwater tank outside the fishroom, and then pump my old water into that for use on the gardens later.

That way I could save it for a time when it is really needed on the garden, not just dump it all out there at once when it's time to change the water.

As for using rainwater in the tanks, I have not tested this myself but I understand rainwater to be way too soft as a starting point for my tanks. It would need far too much buffering

[Ged]

I agree with Baz in that the water would be used at some stage. We have just "value added" by putting it through the fish tanks first and increasing the nutrient levels before using it on our gardens. The water from the school's fish room goes on to the citrus orchard so we are gaining the most out of the same amount of water. We put a 5000 litre water tank in last year to help conserve water but it is too soft for the fish room so it feeds all the water troughs for the livestock.

[Colfish]

i would be absolutely terrified about the use of rainwater, [pollution] the amount of chemical filtration and the addition of huge amounts of buffer and salts,, just not worth consideration.

i'm now using more chemical filtration methods to extend the water change intervals. but in the end, they must be done and to make use of the waste water is only prudent. i have the greenest back yard in town,but it requires mowing often,creating more work and using petrol, [no win situation] the gardens are native, therefore they can't take too much water, especially in winter.

i like the idea of a closed loop, central pit/outdoor pond/refugium system but there would be huge problems with temp. control.

how far do we take it? while still keeping fish as the hobby, as opposed to water sience becoming the obcession. imho, kiss and enjoy ya fish!

cheers

[Ash]

um - why are ya's against rainwater? What the hell do you think the dam gets filled with?

It's only been buffered by the waterboard usually to avoid corrision, or possibly naturally buffered by the "dam substrate" or rivers that feed the catchment areas.

So far as polution goes, it's the same rainfall and not having chorline/cholomine/flouride etc added can only be good too?

If you have to let it stand in tubs to heat it/de-chlor it now anyway - why not have an air driven filter full of coral or something to pre-buffer it a bit too?

[davez104]

I agree with you ash, nothing wrong with rainwater, would be lots more pollution in the water storages with chemical runoff from farms etc. It probably will be soft but if you are setting up a tank purely for waterchange water, why not throw a heap of limestone in the tank? A filter as well maybe but probably not necessary.

[Colfish]

hi Ash

gee it must be good to live up there in clean tropical air.

down here is a far cry from 'clean'

dams get filled with rainwater-- yes. but in between the dam and me it is treated with various chemicals and additives to kill bacterial infestations and to adjust PH to approx. 7.5 and GH/KH aprox. 3-4dg.

rainwater collected from suburban roofs and stored in tanks is polluted by 'urban' industrial fallout, i'm sure a lot of this would dissolve in the water and require resin filtration or even more expensive methods[RO]

sydney water is a good 'drop' and i'm more than happy to pay for it.[we just need to use it wisely] as opposed to more expensive methods of storage and treatment of rainwater.

i'm assured local councils in the metro area here do not allow rainwater tanks for the purpose of 'drinking' water storage

[Ducksta]

If you are smart about water usage, and use your water change water for something worthwhile once you have finished, it is no drama IMO.

While I still see people flooding their lawns with a hose every day (regardless of whether it is inside or outside 'allowed' times), washing their car on a driveway with a hose, washing their car every second day, etc etc, I figure I can recycle 200ltrs a week from my tanks onto several struggling dry garden beds.

We use grey water from washing machine for other things as well. If anybody ever accused me of 'wasting' water I'd probably bop them.

As for rainwater - mate if we had any, there would be no water restrictions.

[davez104]

Sorry, didn't think of that dirty big smoke air. Nice and clean up here!

[teflon]

It's not ther fact that it dosent rain up my way its just the fact it rains for 5 minutes then stops this happens two-three times a week. I think the government should also step up and claim respopnsibility for water wastage with broken water pipes that seem to take hours to fix.... Anyways back on topic

I was watching the "one eyed babysitter" awhile back and the telivised all these water saving "gadgets" that were going to be put into some kind of fair.

They had quite good ideas how to save water one was an upsidedown umbrella that collected water then ran down a pipe into a reseivour tank, Another was connected to the shower and would collect the cold water before the Hot kicked in( I have tried this method seems to work on smaller tanks)

Its just something we are going to be smarter about because if we dont its going to be bad news for our fishies

[Ducksta]

Bad news for our fish? Preservation of pets and livestock is a fairly high priority for water usage and if our restrictions ever got serious enough to stop us changing tank water and giving dogs a drink, we'd all be pretty dehydrated too

[canerod]

Just a thought,

how about a rainwater tank half full of shellgrit. The shellgrit would both filter and buffer the rainwater. Then to ensure we dont get accused of wasting the water on our fish, just set up a tank to supply our dunny cistern and do our water changes from our fish into that tank.

Bob

[teflon]

I'm just wondering

Does anybody know if its possible to treat waterchange water so it filter out the Amonia/nitrates and all the other baddies that we get rid of doing a waterchange.

If its possible i think everyone would start doing it

[Bijengum]

If you want to reduce the amount or number of water changes try using a plant called hornwort. It grows reasonably well in hard water with minimal light. It grows quite quickly and reduces the nitrates thus reducing the need for water changes.

Hey just wondering how everybody gathers water to use for waterchanges??

Does anybody have an advanced method of doing so? especially for people with bigger tanks because water restrictions are going to become super tight.

cheers

Adam

←

[teflon]

Cheers for that

Where can i get it from?

[Ash]

hi Ash

gee it must be good to live up there in clean tropical air.

down here is a far cry from 'clean'

dams get filled with rainwater-- yes. but in between the dam and me it is treated with various chemicals and additives to kill bacterial infestations and to adjust PH to approx. 7.5 and GH/KH aprox. 3-4dg.

rainwater collected from suburban roofs and stored in tanks is polluted by 'urban' industrial fallout, i'm sure a lot of this would dissolve in the water and require resin filtration or even more expensive methods[RO]

sydney water is a good 'drop' and i'm more than happy to pay for it.[we just need to use it wisely] as opposed to more expensive methods of storage and treatment of rainwater.

i'm assured local councils in the metro area here do not allow rainwater tanks for the purpose of 'drinking' water storage

←

Is it seriously that bad? Do you get acid rain or something? I really didn't think Australia was that bad yet

I think you're overestimating the work Sydney water do to your drinking water too. Have a read of this link and check ot the bottom PDF file. All they are doing is adding a flocculant to help remove particulate matter, then carbon/sand filter it, then sterilise it with chlorine/chloromine, toss in some Flurouride & out your tap it comes. nothing fancy involved that you can't duplicate at home with rainwater if it's really that dangerous - they even list the two flocculant chemicals.

Think about the catchment area & all the potential polutants there - I think it's just as dangerous, if not more so than your own roof.

edit:

Teflon --> Google search on plant filtration Infact, I started a thread on the very topic recently, called "Plant Filtration" strangely enough.

[teflon]

Cheers will have a look-see

[Ash]

Thread from the dead - I just got off the phone with the local council's water board & I've been told in no uncertian terms that keeping grey or waste water in a tank in a sewered area is against the law in QLD (state law, no local law in my area)

I'm allowed a rainwater tank and that's it.

If you drain your tanks onto the lawn directly, thats fine so long as no mozzies can be bred.

also, using a powerhead to add pressure to use a sprinkler is a no go too - for risk of "polututing" the air/your neighbours yard.

So there you go - in QLD you HAVE to waste water, nice huh?

[BaZ]

You don't have to waste water, you are just not allowed to store it or launch it

I did water changes on my tanks yesterday and my citrus trees loved drinking up about 800L of waste water. I just moved the end of the hose to the base of a different tree every tank or 2

[trofius]

mm i know what peoplr mean about there has to be an alternative to just draining it onto the lawn, i have a very lush green patch down one side of the garage and you can see an arc of green outside the garage about the same distance my syphon hose goes to. from the 14 tanks garage I estimate i drain about 750l of water a week if i do all the tanks, some of the lower stacked tanks get done every 2 weeks, the 8 footer in the house, ouch theres 250L just there, so all up if I do every thing there is 1000L gone to the lawn, but we keep forgetting to turn on the hose to water the yard, so this surfices.

if you did have a tub for your pre used water, it could be hooked up to a seeper hose so that it releases the water over a few days, or you could fill buckets and water the pot plants with it.

and i just fill the tanks from the hose, I trust the rocky water tuesday to thursday.

[Ash]

I'm too lazy to move the hose BaZ

plus the slope of my yard I can only get the back yard anyway, I guess I could set up a powerhead though

I just wanted it setup to do it automatically