Extreme water use, thoughts on recycling

[kalebjarrod]

I have been doing my normal amount of water changes and am getting a little jack of watering the garden with 400lts a day

has anyone thought of collecting there "water changes" and useing the collected water to flush toilets?

i am toying with the concept and have a plan but was gonna seek some forum feedback first

what else could i use the water for?

what sort of storage containers are on the market at the moment (i would like something thin and stylish) maybe to go under my work bench?

[Ben]

Ryan, i was only thinking of the same thing last week! Really what can be done with the used water?
The only thing i could think of was set up a hydoponic set up! and grow some vegies!
and have the greenest lawn in the street!

cheers,
Ben

[kalebjarrod]

i was thinking of a self priming presure pump hooked directly into your systen from your storage container, i would need a float in the very bottom of the storage tank for townwater when/if i ran out of recycled water

I have two toilets and two kids so i go through alot of water

any one else?

[jwight]

I have seen your exploits of a mad man post and you certainly dont need any help on how to do it. Starting Architecture myself they drum into you the idea of recycling and I was looking to recycle my water effectively. Taking buckets out to the garden is to hard! A small rain water tank with a pump hooked up to the toilets, garden, next doors garden ... would work here etc etc depends on how much water lol.

[kalebjarrod]

I am heavily involed with L/A's myself and they constantly drum the recycle theme

i was thinking of starting to test some thoughts tonight

[Fishpimpin73]

Now if you wanted to go full on "recycle" you could build a small purifier.
Use the "cleaned" water for your dishwasher or laundry, even washing the car.....

As far as uses for tank water go........

Other than gardening, you are really limited bc it is "tech" waste water.

I have been considering doing something in my garden space with the 100 or so gallons a week that I go through.

Let us know what you end up doing!

You deff peaked my interest.

GO MAD MAN GO!!!

[kalebjarrod]

can you fine particle clean water then RO it for a purer source?

How clean would that be?

[jwight]

You could wash the car anyway with Aquarium water its clear, isn't it? water garden, flush toilets, its hard to find things your are right, clean floors, Im not sure its clear, but would it make a smell? If it doesn't smell you can do all sorts of things like shower as long as you dont drink it. I think anyway you may have different views.

[kalebjarrod]

i think it would smell a bit fishy to shower in

toilets yes, but hard to think of other uses?

[Fishpimpin73]

can you fine particle clean water then RO it for a purer source?

How clean would that be?

Depending on what you want to use it for.......

I would recc boiling, then micron filtering the water.
Especially if you have any tannins from DW.
Also there may be a chem issue with peat filtered water also.

You may have to do some PH research.

[goldenpigeon]

Ryan,
i think you should set up an irigation pipe structure through your garden (hope i got that right :? ) what i mean is i saw you outlet that is watering your lawn and thought you could place down camoflage (sorry about spelling) pipes with holes through your garden (if you have one) so that everything gets a fairly even water. i dont think a garden needs watering everyday especially when you are flushing 400L into it everyday. you could use this set up to water your plants every second day. your plants would grow fantasticlly. i think it is gravity fed isnt it? are you actually walking around with the hose watering your plants every W/C?

you could just do something else with the water every other day.

thats all i can think of that would be very helpfull. hope every1 understood what i was trying to say :x

[kalebjarrod]

unfortunatley i am only watering the front lawn in two patchs

and i am dumping 200-400lt on it a day

but without the correct coverage and correct flow water is wasted

in potted plants plants media takes up 15mm of water per hour, most irrigation systems drop 15ltrs per hour PER SPRINKLER HEAD now for adequate watering you need a overlap of 4 sprinklers. (do the math)

water your garden is very ineffective use of water, i should know, i have to water 50acre's a day

i do water my lawn and gardens but i was thining there must be better uses for it :wink:

[Tryhard]

About the only way I can see around this is to purchase a rainwater tank (1000 ltr ?) and pump your water into this and use for whatever you want at your leisure. Could be good for flushing toilets and watering but I think I would draw the line there if you wern't going to filter it before use (just look for the warning signs on your wifes face if she has to start scrubbing tannin stains out of the toilet bowl)

[kalebjarrod]

I had a thought about evaporating the water to remove any solids and the cooling it down again to a purer form (like a mini salintreatment plant)

will this work?

If so how clean would the water be?

[Fishpimpin73]

That is kind of the direction I was leaning when I said "purify"..........

But I don't know what the byproduct/s left over would be from the solids and tannins etc.

Heck, you may end up with some type of "super fert"

Maybe do some research into a de-sal type setup...........
I would think that if you could find away to do something like that it would be fairly clean water.
Although I would deff recc geting a chem analysis done on your end product just in case :wink:

[flukes]

Can you get the water back too what it was, so it can be used in the fish tank again??

What process would be needed.??

RO units?? Micro filters?? could it be done??

[Tryhard]

i suppose if you did the RO on 50% to 70% of your waste water and treated it all with ACN or some thing and made a blend of treated and RO water that was 100% of your waste water you might get some where. Quick Igor - back to the lab I feel another brainwave coming on BWAHAHAHAHA

[Aurora]

You could try doing an old science experiment from when I was a kid. It was the one to get clean drinking water from mud.

You could get an old ice cream container or such and fill it with the old tank water. Test the old water first with all the tests you have. Then you put an empty glass in the middle of the container in the water. Cover the ice cream container with glad wrap and put a pebble or something on the glad wrap just above the glass. Then put it out in the sun. The heat will cause the water to evaporate and it will then condense on the glad wrap and the water will run down the glad wrap and drip into the glass. After all has evaporated, you can do all the tests on the water again and see how this water varies from the old water. If its clean of nitrates, etc, maybe you could make a large scale version to recycle the water to reuse back in your tanks?

[flukes]

hrmmm nice little test. that would be a project and a half too make a larger scale one that could do 400ltrs a day or een a week..

[goldenpigeon]

hehehe that was a fun prac i did in grade five. we even drank the water after!

[jwight]

Ive been reading your comments. Regarding using RO and boiling to clean your water the problem is you are still using the water but you are also wasting electricity. That makes little sense. The best solution would be to plant a garden with cos lettuce, pumpin etc so you can feed algae eaters. Set up a breeding tank for bristlenose and then feed them your farm vegies. Now use only rain water to fill the water and you are completely self sufficent. Although that will never happen (Aquariums are notorious for keeping your wallet that little bit lighter)

[kalebjarrod]

That is my thinking

a solar powered heater heating the water to 30 degrees plus

a saline treatment plant type thing

44gallon drum, domed glass top, driping into the centre piping

but you will need a cooling source for de-humidifying the vapourized pure water

hmmmmmmmmmmm

thoughts?

[Aurora]

You couldnt have a dome top because the water has to run towards the centre to drip in the centre piping. A dome would mean the water runs to the outside edges. A drum would also not be the best option as it would be tall and thin, so it doesnt have the best surface area to volume ratio for evaporation. You want the container to be as wide and shallow as possible for maximum evaporation. As your using a solar powered heater to heat the water, you dont need the sun to shine through the top, so you could just put a towel over the top and soak it in water. As long as you didnt let it totally dry out it would keep the glass cooler than the air in the container, so the water would condense on it and run down to the centre and drip in the piping.

[Fishpimpin73]

I would think that you could use those pond filter drums, due to thier short squat size.

Mod them for an inverted dome type "lid" and plumb it for the distilation tube, then you just have to figure how to remove the "purified" water to a holding tank without losing temp.

[kalebjarrod]

anyhow to start with some recycleing i have hooked up a pump to the outlet of wy automated water change setup

i have then hooked it to my garden hose and i am at least useing the water better than before

when i get back from holidays i will hook all the tanks to the same sort of a sytem

so for the moment green lawn it will be

[Fishpimpin73]

OMG

There really ARE trees in Oz :shock:

[kazkirk]

oh! I like the pump idea, I was wondering how you got water pressure to use sprinkers. Do tell, whats the specs on that pump so I know what I should be looking for. Thanks!

[wyldchyld01]

personally i thought about reuse water and when i get the money and time i am going to try the following.

trying styrofoam boxes (like fish are transported in) that are cut long, wide, shallow and with 1 inch pvc piping pushed through the walls in a couple of places to join mulitple boxes together.

these are painted black with a tar paint that i can get from bunnings for water tanks etc.

over all this is a heavy plastic sheet, like the old see through table cloths at cheap places, and is avail from clarks rubber. slightly raised above the boxes but sealed down to their sides onto a frame. a weight is placed over a catchment container in the middle box . if the whole thing was elevated on a stand (helps to stop flying away etc lol) the smaller catchment container (funnel like) could have a pipe from it's underneath which runs through the bottom of the blackend boxes and then (on an angle like almost vertical) to a drum which is used to store the clean water.

a sump pump or similar could be used to get the water into the tank or in my case the fish house ageing drums and another could elevate the waste water to the black boxes.

the waste one pump is automated using a float system to top up levels once evaporation has occurred from within the boxes. The tar paint is water proof and seals any gaps around pipes, causes the water to heat naturally using direct sun through plastic (hothouse type effect). styrofoam holds heat well and insulates.

initial cost of a small sump pipe (like 200 each) is hurting at the moment for a student like me, we'll see in the future, but for the amount of water that i could re-use, the added filtration from bacteria growing on the sides of the boxes using waste products as nutrients, i am really interested in trying this and maybe adding it directly to filtration (sump).

Brenton

[marg]

Hi everyone, thought I'd put in my two Bobs worth.

I live in a Unit and have two 4 foot tanks in the lounge Room. I have garden beds either side of my front path, so I just siphon the waste water out the front door and directly onto the beds. I figure there would be some nutrients left over in the waste water so it does my garden good - I haven't lost any plants yet anyway.

[kalebjarrod]

the pump i am using is the bottom of the range davey house pump

1700 lt per min (yes min) although the flow is dramaticlly decreased once you add a garden hose and a sprinkler

it has worked very well so i am going to think of a way to hook all my tanks up to this system

at the moment i am going through about 600-800lts per week so dumping the water on a solitary garden bed (as i have been doing) is a bit of overkill when it could be watering the whole yard

wyldchyld01,

your idea sounds like the one i have but i was thinking of useing 44 gal drum and glass as a lid, on a simple rack system outside my new shed

same idea of evaporation, collecting the condensation, and re-storeing it

i think the process may be a little slow and i may produce more water than i can evaporate

it will be a good trial though

[goldenpigeon]

ryan how much was the pump and were did u buy it from?

[wyldchyld01]

Ryan,

hoping our fine weather up this way helps out a little, but your right i send out of the fish-house about 100 ltrs or so every 2 days so i don't think this will handle that amount but to incorporate into filtration system it might be a plus....(was thinking i could add plants etc to container to help like refugium on marine tanks).

DIY motto - try before you buy

Brenton

[kalebjarrod]

got the pump from work

so it didn't cost

i was thinking you could RO your old water and reuse it

although i thought it may be very dirty and probably block the RO unit very quick, but it is worth a try

[goldenpigeon]

where do u work? do u supply pumps where eva u work?

[kalebjarrod]

i just had a spare pump lying around, i don't sell them

sorry :wink:

[DiscusMad]

I was thinking about this topic halfway through a show i was watching at the time about water recycling this was about recycling toilet water and useing it on the garden but what got me thinking was that one idear striked me might be good is that they had the water running through a patch of bullrushes and the water was almost drinkable from the other side of the rushes from the water input to the small planting pond of the rushes then the guy just waters the plants from the run off of the rushes.

I wonder if that set up would be any good with another filter to polish off the water?

thought if is for fish water i would not have a toilet system hooked up ot it :wink: just in case

[kalebjarrod]

this is typically called reed filtration

it works wonders in eviromental sense, it certainly cleans water of alot of problems

might be a trial idea :wink:

[jwight]

This type of filtration is used in wetlands and have seen it been used at Banrock Station in SA. They recycle all the water throught a reed bed and reuse it for the toilets however it should not be used for drinking. The rushes use up phosphates and other unwanted wastes just like aquarium plants however there are no other fish adding waste. The reeds must be planted perpendicular to the water flow in rows. It looks quite nice and could be used as a water feature.

[wyldchyld01]

sounds similiar to a refugiam on a marine tank, in a sense...i had thought about this a while ago and hooked up something similiar but i pump water directly out of the tank into a smaller one (for my plant cultivation,bright light, good substrate etc) has an overflow back into main tank that looks like a waterfall of sorts (my diy remember)...saves cost and increases water volume as well as minimising ppm of certain nasties.

i'll keep running one, as well as the separate area just to grow the plants, this was a fun diy, just a powerhead (or airlift in my case), spare 18 inch tank and you end up with something that kinda looks like a german planted tank.

Brenton

[jwight]

Thats an idea I was going to mention earlier. Discus water can be reused in a communal planted tank. Its clean it will have less than 10 nitrate which all the plants will quickly use up. This can easily be done when breeding discus aas the water is extremely clean. On plantgeek forum they discuss dosing nitrate that is stupid add some fish that is the point of an Aquarium.

[dcarmau]

what if you have something likes this?

where the top is a glass/clear plastic type substance, and at the bottom are 2 gutters, the setup has the water containers underneath, the glass should trap the moisture, and it will run down the inside of the glass into the gutters, which at an angle would go wherever you wanted them to?
***^
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U******U
*|******|
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*|___|

That's such a good point people, I'm living on tank water,and I'd never considered ways to recycle the stuff!

I'm definitely gonna talk to "hubby" about the setup. Unfortunately this means he may decide he wants the 50 Gallon Water Tank I have my eye on as a water heating/treatment setup after all...

other thoughts... if you use perfumed clothes washing detergents and you're just syphoning water out of the tank with no fish poo or whatever, perhaps it could wash clothes?

The first step to figuring out what we can do with our tank water might be figuring out what we use water for...
it gets used for:
cooking
drinking
bathing
fish
washing
toilets
cleaning
(this is by no means supposed to be exhaustive)


the first 4 really require water from the water source, while the last 3... depending on what sort of water you're taking out, (again, solids etc) and the smell of the water, you might be able to do it... as an idea could someone try washing a load of old clothes with "clean" fishtank water (I'm still getting waste out of the gravel from my tanks prior inhabitants atm otherwise I would) and a perfumed detergent and tell us if they smell ok?
I'd guess you could always wash the clothes again in regular water if it's no good.

Just a thought peeps!
Dylan

[DiscusMad]

That is my thinking

a solar powered heater heating the water to 30 degrees plus

a saline treatment plant type thing

44gallon drum, domed glass top, driping into the centre piping

but you will need a cooling source for de-humidifying the vapourized pure water

hmmmmmmmmmmm

thoughts?



the problem of useing any humidifying equipment is that you are left with just h2o and nothing else I think by running the water over clean peat after useing a humidifer or a de-humidifer you put back the trace materals you need for healthy water for your friends

[DiscusMad]

oh and buy humidifying you take out the waste when it turns to vapour

besides I have another idear on getting water from difrent means but thats still in the thinking process and will let you all know if i can get it to work :wink:

[fronny]

Water usage one of the biggest things in aquaculture. Theres this new thing which is mix of aquaculture and hydroponics there calling it aquaponics, i think this could be viable way of making use of water from aquaculture. Here's a link to an australian forum http://www.backyardaquaponics.com/forum/index.php

[DiscusMad]

there is a device that makes water from air which I would like to get to try out but $$$$$ cause I would have to get it shiped in and the smallest unit is not small lol

[Bad Inferno]

I know of someone trying to purify waste water by means of using Sunlight and airation. They are trying to build a cheap lense to intensify the sun and direct it into the water. I assume its the UV doing the work.

rob