My water aging drums.

[Ben]

Hi peoples,
I just got my new rack for aging water (also some tank space on bottom shelve )

I thought i would share it with everyone, maybe get an idea or 2 !
As water changes are SO important i have gone to a lot of trouble to set this up! Makes life a lot easier too...

There are 3x 200 litre drums set 1.1 meters off the ground.
All i do is clip a hose and turn the tap on! works a treat!
I only had one drum set this way, now i have 3 in total and i have room for 1 more drum.

The frame is steal and welded by a proffesional welder so it would take the weight of a couple of elephants!
(cheers Ian )


Ben

[Ben]

Ok, how do i siphon the water out of the tanks?
I simply use normal plactic tubing, the water goes into another drum
(see pic below)
It is on castors so i can move it around to each tank easily,
there is a tap on the bottom which i can connect a hose and run it out side onto the lawn.

[wild_amazon]

Will it be better for you to join the 4 drums together with PVC pipes. Like the outflow valves that you have now but join two tanks together so you need 3 joins for 4 drums. Then to circulate the water you put a powerhead on drum 1 and outflow hose from the powerhead to tank4. Since the water level on all 4 drums will remain the same you will always have water flow in all drums. Easier to condition the water if you need to and you don't need to fill up the drums individually. Basically is like having one 800 liters water storage.

[Ben]

That could work just aswell, except i have a large 260 LPM air pump so i have 2 airstones in each drum. That airates the water.So far only 2 drums are heated.
I dont condition the water only age it for a minimum of 24 hours.
I guess the only problem with the above method is that it might get a tad bit messy with pipes and i would need to buy a powerhead. (not that they are expensive.)
But that would work.

cheers,
Ben

[wild_amazon]

Yes it would involve some works. The other day I saw a water container about 1x1x1m (1000 litres) on a steel stand in a local paper for $200. It's the same container that my LFS uses to keep their saltwater. I like the idea of having storage water in a cube shape as it takes less space. I currently only have a 200 litres drum to age water.

[Mattzilla]

i have seen those 1000 ltr plastic water drums with a cage around them for $100 in sydney.....

would definately be easier running one large storage drum than 3 or 4 200ltr ones. i would try to find one if i where you...then just hook a pump and pump the water into your tanks. it would probably be alot faster and easier once set up.

[wild_amazon]

Yes that's what I mean. It's white plastic cube with a cage around it.

[flukes]

Does it take long using gravity??? Thats what made me go the pump way, a bit faster..

[Ben]

Hi Flukes, When doing a %50 water change on a standard 4 foot tank it takes 8 mintues to
fill it up. so it is a tad slow, but coz i have 2 more should speed things up a little.

cheers,
Ben

[benanddebbie]

In regards to the 1000L cubes for holding water we use these all the time in the mining industry for chemicals and safe transport. You can buy them from Drum Services Limited (DSL) for ~$300 brand new or ~$100 second hand depending on the model. Check out dslpackaging.com for more info, i have dealt with them previously and found them to be very helpful.