Water management and Strategies for water conservation

[kglazier]

gold fish from a pet shop (not a koi) are are breed and selective to live in almost any condition. Fish can also bio accumulate heavy metals without being effected. the fish is great for 'skeet control but not a good indicator of toxic conditions.

if u bleach it that will kill most pathogens. let the water sit a few days and the free chlorine will dissipate. test kits for chlorine & pH are available from most pet shops. or you can get more accurate test kits online from hach (Google it)but still does mean the water is safe to drink. rain water tends to have a pH on the acid side. It can dissolve a lot of stuff.

I think unless your shingles are brand new there is very little concern.... except for the little bits of sand that are always being shed by shingles...  for the most part I suspect they are benign.  Easy to filter out and many many ways to do that.

I think the litmus test is that gold fish.  Fat and healthy is a very good sign.  I have a big tank of water for my horse that is fed by a trickle of water that comes through a float valve.  I keep three or four gold fish in there for the same reason.  I know Carp in general are a dirtier fish than others but they handle a very wide swing of water temps and salinity...  If the water is deep enough they will over winter  in an environment that would freeze the water a good six inches deep.  I was told by an aquarium keeper that green algae is also a good sign of a healthy environment,  So having fish in there to graze the Algae and any insects that take up residence is a very good idea.

IF you see Blue algae....  You will know the difference its less velvety and harder to scrape off stuff like rocks and tub walls.  That is not a good sign.  Blue Algae... Um er... Blue green....  Is not Algae at all but a cyanobacteria....  Some of it is poisonous.... Some of it like Spirulina Are actually good for us...  Knowing the difference....  better safe than sorry in the home enviironment.

I would love to hear more about water treatment for water that comes off the roof.  My years of working with aquariums tell me it would be a simple process of good filtration to make the water off the roof drink able.... for anyone.   

Does your well water have an odor?  Mine does and I drink it to no ill effect.... I am told its due to bacteria that take up residence in the pipes and their by product is a gas that smells like rotten eggs.   my research tells me I need to bleach the well....  Havent done that yet.  

deb

 

[perchie.girl]

gold fish from a pet shop (not a koi) are are breed and selective to live in almost any condition. Fish can also bio accumulate heavy metals without being effected. the fish is great for 'skeet control but not a good indicator of toxic conditions.

if u bleach it that will kill most pathogens. let the water sit a few days and the free chlorine will dissipate. test kits for chlorine & pH are available from most pet shops. or you can get more accurate test kits online from hach (Google it)but still does mean the water is safe to drink. rain water tends to have a pH on the acid side. It can dissolve a lot of stuff.


Quote: Hi Kglazier

My horse and other animals including myself only get well water to drink.... The fish are ONLY for skeeters.

But I do believe Gold fish that you get in the store for feeding other fish are not bred for special abilities to live in bad water. Though they have been domesticated long enough to be the longest domesticated fish. According to what I know (I am no expert) common gold fish will live in any environment that will support a pond. They naturally can live in a wide variety of conditions from very good down to stagnent and high salt content.... Up to brackish. They have the ability to gulp air if the water quality goes down for a time.... And they can virtually hibernate for about a hundred or so days. As long as the ice doesnt freeze down to the bottom where they are sleeping.

While Tilapia require warmer water. They are incredibly adaptable to Salinity and PH like gold fish. Here in California Tilapia have naturalized to the Salton Sea. Which is an accidental lake formed when the Colorado overflowed several decades ago and rehydrated an ancient salt lake. The salinity in the Salton Sea is higher than the Pacific, and quite polluted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salton_Sea

I am interested in the test kits.... Are there ones specifically designed for drinking water? I know pool test kits are designed to look for ph levels that will allow algae growth.

While Bleach will kill most organisms and is quite safe to use for specific purposes... I am loth to use it for some reason. The pollutants have to be dealt with in another manner.... My plan for doing that is to run the water through an organic filter like Water Hyacinth..... It grows fast and is known to remove heavy metals from water.... Plus you can harvest it when it overgwows Dry it out and use it in the fireplace. It also has very pretty pale blue flowers.

deb

 

[perchie.girl]

I know its bee kind of quiet. but I am in sketch mode.... LOL.

I am still researching Grey water filtration.... Drew up a few sketches.... read some more and realized I got to complicated.... I will share my sketches including the rejects when I get a couple more done.

deb

 

[perchie.girl]

The wife and I closed on our house and land yesterday afternoon. Should be able to move in in a month. Since the house is new (modular) and should have no issues upon move in I want to crawl underneath it and swap some plumbing around. I'd like to run the drains from the sinks and showers/tub to a holding tank and then plumb that tank into the "fill" pipe for the toilets. I think it's just stupid to use potable water (that I've paid for!) to flush a toilet when we can just reuse the grey water.

I do have some problems though.

1) I have NO IDEA how to do plumbing.
2) I don't know how to make the water go from the holding tank to the toilets. (pump?)
3) I don't know if the holding tank will be icky or smell strange. <--- That will be a game stopper for my wife, no nasty smells!
4) I don't know if something like this is legal or even who to ask.
5) Are there any health risks involved?

This project will be step one to us being closer to getting off the grid and saving money on the water bill until I can get a well punched.

Thank you for your time.
RichnSteph

Plumbing is easy to do.... The mechanical part of putting things together. I was told that by a plumber.... Water goes down hill...

LOL he was/is a friend and a smarty. If it were my house I would go a head and have a plumber get in there and do the redirection. Actually thats what I did do.

Yep you will get an odor from the first tank. and it has to have access to air in order for it to work. IF you have to have the main tank near the house Then you can run a vent up above the eves. just like the vents that are on your house now for the toilet. Thats why they are all the way up through the roof. They do the same for out houses too. I suspect the oder from a grey water tank will be NOThing like a septic system though.

With regard to plumbing tools..... Get one of those PVC cutters rather than trying to saw through pipe.... They will cut up to two inch diameter pvc. and I use Red Hot Blue Glue.... rather than the two part glue.

Oh and I just recently found out you dont have to glue at all if everything is free flowing and unpressurized. So you can do a test run before you glue. Also the glue will work on damp PVC.



deb

 

[RichnSteph]

Plumbing is easy to do.... The mechanical part of putting things together. I was told that by a plumber.... Water goes down hill...

LOL he was/is a friend and a smarty. If it were my house I would go a head and have a plumber get in there and do the redirection. Actually thats what I did do.

Yep you will get an odor from the first tank. and it has to have access to air in order for it to work. IF you have to have the main tank near the house Then you can run a vent up above the eves. just like the vents that are on your house now for the toilet. Thats why they are all the way up through the roof. They do the same for out houses too. I suspect the oder from a grey water tank will be NOThing like a septic system though.

With regard to plumbing tools..... Get one of those PVC cutters rather than trying to saw through pipe.... They will cut up to two inch diameter pvc. and I use Red Hot Blue Glue.... rather than the two part glue.

Oh and I just recently found out you dont have to glue at all if everything is free flowing and unpressurized. So you can do a test run before you glue. Also the glue will work on damp PVC.



deb

Thanks Deb! I talked to a plumber friend of mine about it and he said there are only three things you need to know to be a plumber.

1) Poop flows down hill.
2) Payday is on Friday.
3) Don't chew your fingernails.......

LOL! I'll probably just pay him to do it for me since he's licensed and all.

Thank you again and have a great week.
RichnSteph

 

[perchie.girl]

Quote:

deb

 

[kglazier]

check out test supplies here:

www.hach.com/testkitsguide

usabluebook.com is another good source.

this is a great discussion. I am learning a lot form the other post. I am trying hydroponics this spring. I. really like the aquaponics set up.

kipp

 

[perchie.girl]

check out test supplies here:

www.hach.com/testkitsguide

usabluebook.com is another good source.

this is a great discussion. I am learning a lot form the other post. I am trying hydroponics this spring. I. really like the aquaponics set up.

kipp

I am learning along with all of us.... I know aquariums and understand the principals of filtration.... But on this large of a scale I have never really done it.

As a mechanical designer give me a diagram and an idea of how its supposed to work I can put it to gether. My only limitation is physical... so on the heavy or tall stuff I have to have help. I cant dig so everything has to be on top of the ground.

deb

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

Thanks Deb! I talked to a plumber friend of mine about it and he said there are only three things you need to know to be a plumber.

1) Poop flows down hill.
2) Payday is on Friday.
3) Don't chew your fingernails.......

LOL! I'll probably just pay him to do it for me since he's licensed and all.

Thank you again and have a great week.
RichnSteph

 

[Gallo del Cielo]

I've enjoyed this thread and figured I should contribute. As an avid gardener in the desert southwest of the US, I have to consider water conservation in everything I do in the yard. Water is expensive here in Tucson and anything I can do to lower that bill is money in our pockets. When we first bought this house nearly seven years ago, surrounded by block walls, in the center of the city on just over 1/3 of an acre we had great plans for a garden and fruit trees. Our first rain event after moving in made us realize we'd have to figure out how to stop the run off. We got about 1/2" of rain that day and it ran off in rivers on either side of the house and down into the street. After the rain stopped I checked the soil and the moisture had barely penetrated below the surface. That was about 1/20th or our annual rainfall and most of it just flowed away into the storm drains. We had to figure out how to keep it on the property.

The soil here is terrible, with almost no organic content and a pH of about 8. Rain is rare (less than 10" over the past few years) and when it comes, it wants to flow horizontally down hill rather than soak in. Down about 6" below the surface is a layer nearly a foot thick of caliche (calcium carbonate), which is about the hardness of concrete. In short, it's not very good for gardening. We had to make our own garden soil.

I tackled the problem of keeping the rain water on the property at the same time that I made the garden. In the back of the property I dug out a hole for the garden that ended up being 12' wide by 50' long, with a depth of about 3' at the edges and 4' in the center. I took most of that soil that I dug out and used it to change the grade of the yard. Where initially the high point on the property was at the back wall and sloped down to the street in the front, I changed it so that the high point was on either side of the house near the front gates with everything sloping down to the garden at the back of the property. I essentially reversed the grade. I didn't do this all at once, but rather over a couple of years. It was a lot of dirt to move by hand.

In the garden hole I drove down 2'-3' pieces of branches with a sledge hammer to perforate the bottom further and add more organic material. I then filled most of the hole with any good organic material I could get my hands on, e.g. truckloads of horse manure, tree branches, palm fronds, prickly pear cactus, grape vines. I filled the top 12" with a mixture of compost and native soil so that I could grow immediately, even while the materials beneath were decomposing. Because the organic material breaks down quickly, the surface of the garden sinks so that it is below the grade. Most of the water that falls on the property now flows into the garden. There it soaks down and laterally into the soil layers below the caliche and keeps it moist all year long, where before it was dry. We mulch like crazy to further conserve water. I mostly use shredded cardboard, pine shavings and alfalfa.

It's been shocking how much organic material it took to get to a point where it sinks very little. Once or twice a year I double-dig the soil, adding more organic material to the bottom. After about six years, I've nearly filled it up. The quality of the soil is incredible, probably better than the great soil on our farm in MI when I was growing up. It's so rich and dark, a sharp contrast to our native soil. Oh, one more thing, we added worms. We have native worms here, they just usually aren't all that common, so I also added night crawlers and red wiggler composting worms. They all seem to occupy different niches and their numbers in the soil now are truly astonishing.

We also have an aquaponics system in it's third year of use and cisterns (which I haven't yet hooked up). So, that's my introduction. I like to save water so I can give it to plants.