Looking to make my water storage more efficient

[frenchie100]

So the most time consuming thing I have to do during my wcs is transfering my aged water from one barrel to another. It takes forever and I am sure there is a much more efficient way to do it!

I am positive that your great minds can tell me how!

This is the set up I have right now:

2 55 gallon barrels:

barrel 1.- mixed 1/3 tap 2/3 RO, areated, and heated. Has been aged at least 24 hrs

barrel 2- is the barrel I use for mixing. I put 1/3 tap, prime, and turn on RO unit at night which fills it overnight.

I then transfer the contents of barrel 2 into barrel 1 as I use the barrel 1 water.

At this point it doesn't give me much extra water in case I need extra water. I am doing 50% wc eceryday on my 55 gallon.

I am about to transfer my fish into a 100 gallon tank, so I am going to need more water. My plan is to add another 55 gallon barrel (we will call it barrel 3)

I would like a more convenient was to transfer water from one barrel to another. Roght now I am using a 295 gph pump on a 1/2" tube. It takes way too long.

I thought I could plumb the barrels together, so that when barrel 1 empties, barrel 2 fills it up, and when barrel 2 empties barrel 3 fills it up. This would have to be something I fully control myself because I don't want to have to heat 3 barrels.

My problem is gravity though. Unless I have power source the water is just going to flow into the barrel that has the least amount of water and stop flowing when the levels have equalized between the 2 barrels.

For that to work each barrel would have to be higher than the one it is filling into, and with 3 barrels that is impossible.

How else can I do it? How do you guys do it without taking 30 minutes every day!

thank you!

Hopefully all this makes as much sense when you read it as it does in my head!

Let me know if you need any clarifications.

-Julie

[csarkar001]

float switch ... check valve ... pump

use a float switch to turn off pump when barrel with aged water becomes full. otherwise, pump moves water into aging barrel automatically. check valve used to keep water flowing in one direction only even when pump turned off and aging barrel has more water in it than others. you can daisy-chain as many barrels together like this that you want.

if you're worried about the float switch failing and creating a flood, consider using something like this:

http://autotopoff.com/products/DT1/

[seanyuki]

hi Julie.

From one barrel to another....just a heavy duty pump....like those Iwaki pumps....done less than 5 minutes.

Cheers
francis

[frenchie100]

Okay, that is exactly what I am talking about!

Except I am completely DIY plumbing illiterate! I am doing this from scratch without having ever done something like this before! So if you could explain some things, I would greatly appreciate it!

How do I connect all my barrels together? Using the check valves? If yes, can I close them when I don't want water to go from one barrel to the next? I need to make sure that I am not mixing unaged water with aged water.

Where do I put the pump? I see that the Iwaki pump in an external pump, so what do I attach it to?

I really like that the autoshut off idea, except my barrel is circular so I don't think I can attach it to the rim. And would it prevent me from closing the barrel all the way? Could I rig it up somehow?

Told you! Completely clueless!

-Julie

[Eddie]

float switch ... check valve ... pump

use a float switch to turn off pump when barrel with aged water becomes full. otherwise, pump moves water into aging barrel automatically. check valve used to keep water flowing in one direction only even when pump turned off and aging barrel has more water in it than others. you can daisy-chain as many barrels together like this that you want.

if you're worried about the float switch failing and creating a flood, consider using something like this:

http://autotopoff.com/products/DT1/

hi Julie.

From one barrel to another....just a heavy duty pump....like those Iwaki pumps....done less than 5 minutes.

Cheers
francis

Here you go Julie, some info on connecting barrels. You can you bulkheads, either hose type or straight PVC connections.

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...umbing+barrels

http://forum.simplydiscus.com/showth...ecting+barrels

Eddie

[frenchie100]

Thanks Eddie! Will read through both of these forst thing tomorrow morning! Tonight it would probably just blow my mind! LOL

-Julie

[frenchie100]

Arggh, I knew I shouldn't have looked! It's jiberish to me!!!

No in all seriousness the second link seems to be exactly what I need!

I'm sure I'll be back with some questions!

Thanks again Eddie! Always here to help us when we need it!

-Julie

[Eddie]

Arggh, I knew I shouldn't have looked! It's jiberish to me!!!

No in all seriousness the second link seems to be exactly what I need!

I'm sure I'll be back with some questions!

Thanks again Eddie! Always here to help us when we need it!

-Julie

No problem Julie, I always at least try to help.

Take care,

Eddie

[csarkar001]

if you're intimidated by the plumbing, you can do this job with a powerful submergible pump, some flexible hose and a check valve. the advantage of the check valve is that you can leave the pump submerged all the time and not worry about water back-flowing to the source barrel when the pump is off.

the check valve would be inserted at the end of the flexible hose. here is a picture. the check valve only allows water to run in one direction.

you might still want to look into using a float switch. if you're worried about the shape of your barrel, there are float switches of every kind available on the net.

good luck, Julie!

[frenchie100]

Hi everyone,

I am bringing this thread back alive because my fish got sick so I had been focusing on that. I still haven't plumbed my barrels together. The plan is to do it this weekend, so I need to know what I talking about.

So I need you help...

Here is what I would like:

- all three of my barrels to be plumbed together.

- each one having the capability to be shutoff from the others.

- barrel #1 being the one I take the water from ( so that heated one) and barrel #3 being the one that I mix my tap and RO into.

- I would like to empty the contents of barrel #3 as barrel #2 empties.

How do I do that with gravity issues? I just want to either flip a switch or open a valve. I don't want to use a pump and tubing to transfer from one barrel to the next ( I have had too many accidents happen soing it that way!)

So is this possible? If so how?

Thanks!

-Julie

[KJoFan]

Hi Julie,

I'm not sure I could be of much (if any) help but I wanted to make sure I'm clear at least on what you want to achieve, then maybe I can make a few suggestions.

You are only able to create your mix in one barrel currently, correct? (barrel #1)

And would like barrels #2 and #3 to be your "holding" barrels for the completed mix?

Your issue is that you only want to heat one barrel, however I'm a bit confused on this, as you said you were upgrading to a larger tank, will one barrel of heated mix be enough per water change?

If so, then what is the point of having another barrel to store your mix in? You may have a very valid point to this, it just escapes me with what you've explained so far.

[Dkarc@Aol.com]

For the plumbing all 3 together and still maintain individual usage is easy. Drill a bulkhead/Uniseal near the bottom side of each barrel. Plumb a ball valve directly after each bulkhead/Uniseal. Line all 3 barrels up in a line, ball valves facing outwards. The 2 outside barrels glue in a 90 after each valve, each 90 facing each other (both facing towards center barrel). Take the center barrel and glue a cross after that valve. Connect the 90's and cross with pipe so it is one continous section of pipe. On the center barrel, where the cross is glued in, take the outside end (the one not glued) and run pipe from there to where ever you need it.

Using this setup, you can turn each barrel on or off as you need it. Leave all ball valves open and they all fill at the same time/rate. Or just fill 2 barrels at the same time....whatever. The system is very flexible and good for your needs it sounds like. Let me know if my description was too much to follow and I can see about drawing a diagram or something up.

-Ryan

[Dkarc@Aol.com]

Ok so I got bored and decided to make a simple/crud diagram anyways.



Let me know if anything needs explaining.

-Ryan

[tcyiu]

I too am a bit confused as to why so many barrels.

Since your water is mostly R/O and you're already adding Prime, could you not bypass the aging process and go straight to the tank?

Tim

[discussmith]

I tried to include pictures of my 65 gal. automatic tap and RO mixing system. I use a float switch to control a 24volt sprinkler valve that feeds both a supply to my RO unit (the yellow tube) and a tap water supply to a pressure regulator (on the left side of sprinkler valve) that goes to a drip emitter. I included a poor picture of the float switch attached to a piece of plexiglass and cable tied into the corner of the tank. I control the mix of RO to tap water by how fast the drip emitter feeds tap water into the tank as to how fast the RO feeds water into the tank. I took a measuring vessel and timed how long it took to fill and then adjusted the dripper to run 25% as fast. I have a tds meter to check the mix when I like to just make sure it is fairly constant. This allows me to use whatever portion of stored water I need and not have to worry about how to partially refill with the proper mix as it is always mixing in the proportion I want as it fills. When the water level in the storage tank drops below the float switch the sprinkler valve sends water to the RO and the drip emitter refilling the storage until the float switch shuts it off. FYI The same 24 volts controls a relay that turns off the filter and heaters while pumping out and refilling so I never worry about burning out a heater or running the filter right out of water. I use the filter to help off gassing and even out the heat. The dripper is positioned over the filter to fill it so when refill is done and power is restored the filter will automatically restart its siphon. The white hose is attached to an inexpensive plastic sump pump (1700 gph) that will pump out 60 gallons from the basement up to the first floor tanks in less than 5 minutes. This sytem is automated as is the aquarium pump out and re-fill side and would require someone with handyman skills to setup but could also be setup to run manually with float valves.