Using Rain Water??

[Scott293]

I am interested in using rain water. In a world going green these days, I have noticed quite a few people with drums under their downspouts collecting rain water from their roof for watering their grass. I have a Spanish tile roof which is like the clay pot material we use for our discus to lay eggs on. I don't see where my roofing material could cause a problem. If I use a solid black drum, the light wouldn't be growing algae in the drum. Then if I run a water line from the bottom of my drum to the basement with a filter and manual valve, it would be all gravity fed. I would also need an overflow for the drum outside going into my storm drain. It doesn't sound so hard to get set up and I could store multiple 55 gallon drums in the basement for winter. Food grade 55 gallon plastic drums are selling for as low as $8 each. Once it is set up, I would think the system would be virtually trouble free.

I'm just kicking ideas and thoughts out there. I don't have the testing equipment nor do I have enough knowledge about the water chemistry to know what I would be getting with rain water. I live in the city of Cincinnati Ohio. I would guess that the pollution in the air comes down with the rain. Maybe I should just take the bull by the horns and just do some testing for us all and see what I can find. I searched the forum and didn't find where anyone else had tried to do this. If you have please let me know what you found.

[Northstr31]

be careful if you or your neighbors have an exterminator that sprays outdoors, it will settle on your roof and get into your rain water...

[William Palumbo]

LOL...the warnings have been put out there people...if you want to try it, then do so. It may work, or we'll just see your next threads/posts in the "Disease?Sickness" forum. I live in Chicago, and I would NEVER use rainwater. Period. If I did, I would need about 100+ gallons a day...that's not going to happen. The volume is just not there. If you get no rain in your area, you don't make water changes? How does that work? Or you only change water when it rains?...Bill

[Scott293]

That's a good point you bring up there Northstr. I would guess the only way to insure that wouldn't happen would be to only collect the rain water after it has rained long enough to wash the roof off first.

[Scott293]

Bill, The rain water would only be an intermediate means for water. If you have none then use the ro water. I am 50 years old. I have relatives that I remember when I was a kid that used cistern water which was filled with the water from their roof. I remember that as a kid, being the best coldest water I have drank. Now the lakes and ponds are filled with rain water, and even the lakes we have around Cincinnati are thriving with healthy fish. Granted much of that water is probably rain runoff which is essentially filtered, but that is the only thing that fills our fresh water lakes rivers and ponds. It can't be all that bad, Scott

[Joker43]

Scott

I live a mile from the Steel Mill where I work and wouldn't think about collecting rain water for fish. You will need to look way outside your neighborhood for pollutants.
Yes I'm sure after a long rain it might be better but what will keep the drum clean and protected until then? Save $5 on water and risk hundreds in fish?
You might live in a good area... Good Luck in whatever you choose. Keep it for the plants and see if they live...

Tito

[Scott293]

LOL...the warnings have been put out there people...if you want to try it, then do so. It may work, or we'll just see your next threads/posts in the "Disease?Sickness" forum. I live in Chicago, and I would NEVER use rainwater. Period. If I did, I would need about 100+ gallons a day...that's not going to happen. The volume is just not there. If you get no rain in your area, you don't make water changes? How does that work? Or you only change water when it rains?...Bill

Bill, you sound just like someone from Chicago, "only change water when it rains?" Do you think everyone else in this hobby is stupid? "If you don't get rain you don't make water changes?" Again, who do you think you are? I asked to discuss something, not for smart a.. remarks. Or for the record an average size home's roof provides hundreds of gallons PER MINUTE in a good rain. No, this is not a stupid idea.

[William Palumbo]

Thanks for the Chicago comment Scott. I tell it like it is, so I consider it a compliment. Thanks. Pollution in the air gets absorbed by rain water. What are you really going to check? You think TDS and ph are going to tell you everything you need to know? You'll never be able to test for contaminants. I'll disagree with you all day on the volume of water coming off a roof per min....Who I am is not important. But I do have an RO unit, and I get all the "rain" water I need, when I need it. My dozen+ pairs, and my 1000's a fry appreciate it as well...Bill

[Scott293]

I am also thinking about the hobbyist who cannot afford a $300 ro unit. Everything that we go through to keep discus healthy is exactly what scares people away from having discus.

[William Palumbo]

Scott, the price on Ro's have actually come down considerably since they first hit the market. Also WAY user friendly now. I was scared of them myself, as you had to "hard" plumb them into your plumbing, and with me renting at the time...no way.... Trust me, I tried most things in my early days to get the "perfect" Discus water...rainwater as well. IMO, I feel the risk of using it is not worth the risk to your fish. As someone already mentioned, Discus are not cheap! Maybe 20-30 years ago, rainwater was probably a good idea. But now, with all the pollution and toxins in there, not a great idea. And what's really the point if you have to take raw rainwater and filter it thru carbon/resins to make it useable? That's what an RO unit does...Bill

[TURQ64]

RO units are now extremely cheap for even large output units..check good 'ole Ebay, and you'll see...You can get a 100 g a day unit cheaper than you can get a 5" albino from Kenny; small price to pay in my opinion.. And since I'm speaking my opinion here, we bought the first R/O unit in our life for our own consumption; the fish were secondary beneficiaries.....Gary ( and for once I'm shouting 'Go Bill!...all good points..)

[Scott293]

Yes, at this point I am agreeing with Bill. But I also know that the way to raise the best in show guppy, is to put a few good prospects in the 100 gallon garden pond in the back yard in the spring and forget about them for the summer. At the end of summer, in the "rain water", with mosquito larvae and what ever else they have to eat you can net up hundreds of the prettiest guppies you have ever seen. That goes the same with many other fish. Of course I would not just drop a $500 pair of discus in my patio fish pond in back. But lets just not forget where these fish came from. They are much more hardy now than when I last had them in the 1980's. By more hardy I also mean more adapted to tap water.

Bill in my situation, I will not be using nearly as much water as you. Maybe I will in the future, but as for now I'll not use but 100 gallons per week. A trap on the downspout to catch the big stuff and a filter in the water line coming from the sealed drum outside to the drum inside is about as simple as hooking up an RO unit to my plumbing and much less costly. I purchased an RO unit off of craigslist for $50, but when it comes time to replace filters it's going to be $250. If you are using 100 gallons per day then you know what kind of water bills you have. Another breeder told me of his $800 water bill. I am talking about free water here. What I don't know is what kind of chance I would be taking by using it. And at this point all we have done is speculate. I was hoping to find someone who has tested or tried rain water. Our rivers get polluted from factories draining chemicals into them and they also get polluted from run off water from fields and yards that have been treated with chemicals. They may get polluted from rain too? I intend to find out

Who knows, you may see a first place winning discus at the show that was raised in the summer in my pond in the back yard. Then brought in to the house and fattened up where I use rain water (free water) for the winter.

[LizStreithorst]

There are too may contimates these days in rain water for it to be usable for Discus. Rain water picks up stuff when it falls. In a perfect world it would be pristine, but not in this world. Your roof is not the problem. It is what the rain picks up on it's way down

Shame...I would like to use it myself.

[TURQ64]

Well, there's a few mis-stated facts and such coming down 'with the rain'...O.K., I'm 62, tried rainwater when I was a pup, and pollution was lower, and it didn't work out well. I also have relatives and neighbors who used a cistern all their lives..All have some nerve related disorder or another, which eventually put them in the grave. One of my wife's farming uncle's from Parkinson's, and my father-in-law from early onset Alzheimer's...As for the R/O can that's getting kicked around, I have two, and buying my third soon...a zillion filters down the road, I pay around 9 or 10 bucks each for the carbon blocks and small micron prefilters, and for my DI, 34 bucks....that's 52 yankee frogskins by my math, not 250.00, although they get changed at different intervals, so it's really 9 bucks here, 34 bucks there....I use/waste around 4,000 gallons a month right now for my fish, which is an added 40 bucks a month.

[Scott293]

Acid Rain = Rainwater which contains sulphuric acid or nitric acid is called acid rain. It is caused by acidic air pollutants such as sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide which react with rainwater. Sulphur dioxide dissolves readily in water to form sulphurous acid: SO2(g) + H2O(l) ~~~~~~~> H2SO3(aq) In the presence of oxygen in the air, this acid is slowly oxidised to sulphuric acid. Oxides of nitrogen also contribute to acid rain. In the presence of oxygen and water, nitrogen dioxide is converted to nitric acid. 4NO2(g) + 2H2O(l) + O2(g) ~~~~~~> 4HNO3(aq). This is quoted from library.thinkquest.org/C0111401/acid_rain.htm

It also says that the reason that rain is a pollutant to marine life is because the acid rain lowers the pH value of lakes and rivers. In simpler terms, it makes them more acidic. When the water becomes too acidic, the fish begin to die. In addition to that, other plants will also disappear. It is said that when the pH value of the water gets to 4.5, pretty much everything in the lakes and rivers are dead.

Now folks I quoted that from a credible site. If that is the only thing we have to worry about is checking the ph then this is an easy one. I think we have all been told too many scare tactic things about our environment. I will keep looking for more facts.

Bill I also found that the average home has 1,200 square feet of roof space and the average amount of rain water on the average size roof is 35,000 gallons per year in Chicago.