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Dennis The Mennis
11-18-2011, 05:04 PM
With the huge amount of water that everyone goes through, I'd love to hear ideas about how the used tank water is getting reused. I have a flower garden that thrives and absolutely loves my tank water. I was also trying to figure out a way to constantly cycle my tank water to a hydroponic type set up for a nice I door plant. Has anyone else done something like this. I'd love to hear ideas on doing something like this.

lipadj46
11-18-2011, 05:18 PM
use it to flush your toilets, that would be hardcore.

ericatdallas
11-18-2011, 05:31 PM
I'm trying to do an aquaponics system right now... I just haven't worked it all out yet. Just treat your hydroponics system like a sump or refugium.

My goal is to grow some lettuce and then as I get more advanced move to tomatoes and strawberries. I'm starting small though.

Be warned, if you go to the aquaponics forums, fish keeping is secondary to them with their primary goal is to raise plants. Many of them are absolutely against doing regular water changes even when nitrates hit over 500ppm (way more fertilizer than their plants need). Rather than find root causes for diseases they go for quick shortcuts and treat symptoms. I'm not saying they're all like that, but they really aren't as concerned about the fish.


use it to flush your toilets, that would be hardcore.

Yeah, but I find used fish water sitting stagnant smells pretty bad :(

Chad Hughes
11-18-2011, 06:12 PM
I hold all of my waste water in an outdoor 880 gallon holding tank area. These tanks are plumbed to a hose bib and to a sprinkler pump.

Anytime I use a garden hose in the yard for watering, I use the hose bib powered by a sump pump in the waste water holding tanks. I just thrown a switch to turn on the pump, open the hose bib and water away!

Every evening at 8:00 pm, my sprinkler system turns on. The water from these tanks is pumped through my sprinkler system by the sprinkler pump. I can power 28 sprinkler heads simultaneously, maybe more. The only issue with the sprinkler system is that the water MUST be filtered for solids. I use a Hayward cartridge filter to filter all of the water flowing out to the sprinklers. This keeps the individual sprinkler heads from becoming clogged with debris.

Needless to say, I don't have any issues kepin things green. :D

chrisb01
11-18-2011, 08:06 PM
I water my plants with it too.

TURQ64
11-18-2011, 10:39 PM
we've always used it for the 'summer' things; garden, yard, pond,but...now it's turning to a frozen wasteland, and with no city plumbing, the challange has always been there. I'm now in my second month of trials in recycling it. No big details,but..a pile of plumbing parts, three pumps (two of which are shallow well pumps supplying steady pressure), several carbon and sediment filters, three 275g tanks, a UV sterilizer, multiple RO's...Plumbing switches water to the laundry and four other RO's. Valving switches the source of the aforementioned from RO reject or Tank Wc settling tank...Stuff vac'd daily from tanks by hand siphon goes down the toilet in winter, on the tomatoes in the summer....

Willie
11-19-2011, 12:22 PM
In our local discus club, I met a couple of gals that got into discus in reverse. They were both orchid fanatics and purchased R/O units to raise orchids from seedlings. That's when they ran into discus people. They raised their discus in pure R/O and used the soft waste water to grow orchids. Both hobbies worked really well together.

Willie

TURQ64
11-19-2011, 12:32 PM
Same for me, kind of..I purchased my first RO to support our then huge orchid collection....the fish benefitted greatly!..now the orchids suffer:(....but they are getting some new ground in the new fishroom...

Jhhnn
11-20-2011, 12:33 AM
I hold all of my waste water in an outdoor 880 gallon holding tank area. These tanks are plumbed to a hose bib and to a sprinkler pump.

Anytime I use a garden hose in the yard for watering, I use the hose bib powered by a sump pump in the waste water holding tanks. I just thrown a switch to turn on the pump, open the hose bib and water away!

Every evening at 8:00 pm, my sprinkler system turns on. The water from these tanks is pumped through my sprinkler system by the sprinkler pump. I can power 28 sprinkler heads simultaneously, maybe more. The only issue with the sprinkler system is that the water MUST be filtered for solids. I use a Hayward cartridge filter to filter all of the water flowing out to the sprinklers. This keeps the individual sprinkler heads from becoming clogged with debris.

Needless to say, I don't have any issues kepin things green. :D

I've considered a grey water system myself, but what I'd need to go through to achieve it hardly seems worth it at the price we pay for water. It's also illegal here. I do put all the filter squeezings in the flowerbeds or the houseplants, depending on the wife's whims...

ericatdallas
11-20-2011, 12:49 AM
I'm telling you, aquaponics :)

Btw, I thought the no gray water sounded pretty absurd. I knew about no rain water collecting but gray water. The rationale (public health) seems a bit over-protective but makes some sense.