Blog Comments

Some of it is wishful thinking since I don't have a way to measure bacteria colonies nor a way to study which ones I have in my tank. Still, an ongoing published concern is that a single strain will dominate and take over the tank, so adding additional bacteria from various sources ensures diversity. This isn't a lot different from sharing cups of live sand from other hobbyists' tanks.

I've had this bottle since March and dosed four times in that time period.

So I am curious how you determined that your system needs more bacteria, and/or is lacking in the mixture you introduced. I know you have been to lectures and have advanced sources of info. and this is an area of reefkeeping that has always puzzled me.

Used up 200g of water today, and turned off the pump since Vat #1 was empty. #2 is holding about 150g or so, and Vat #1 is refilling now as I make the final 60g of RO/DI water overnight.

I'm going to try that out as well. I need to see what it does.

Originally Posted by melev

The next phase will be to hook this up directly to a hosebib to compare the water volume that wicks out of the hose. My home's water pressure is between 45 PSI out of the faucet, and 85 at the membrane with 1/4" tubing. I'm curious what the difference looks like.

does this mean that you are going to hook the 1/4 waste line dirrectly to the soaker hose?
i was wondering if it would work. also, would back pressure cause an ill effect on the RO unit??

This is cool, and if that works, then ill be drilling a hole in the brick my self very soon!

About two hours ago, I changed the 25' length of soaker hose to 75' instead. With the greater surface area of tubing, the waste water is being used up more quickly. I'd like to set up full series of hoses that wraps around the house, other than the concrete areas like the entry points and driveway. If I can have a single point to connect it to the waste water barrel, that would be great.

Since I started collecting water yesterday, I measured it to over 325g of waste water. I still have 85g of good to go, so I'm expecting another 255g of waste to use around the foundation in the next day.

The next phase will be to hook this up directly to a hosebib to compare the water volume that wicks out of the hose. My home's water pressure is between 45 PSI out of the faucet, and 85 at the membrane with 1/4" tubing. I'm curious what the difference looks like.

My RO unit is in my laundry room so the waste water goes into the washing machine or reserved to water plants.

I used mine for my vegetable garden. The brine output went into barrels, chained together, and situated on high ground. Then I had a timer set to water the vegetable garden down in a valley area of our property. I used a LOT of purified water so I never ran out of the brine, and the brine was essentially similar to a liquid fertilizer, since it had phosphates and nitrates in it. It worked very well, and I felt better about my entire system. Because we are on a well with fairly good water, there was no chlorine or other BS to contend with. Doing this on city water requires a bit more careful analysis, since it could contain things you don't want in your veggies!

Originally Posted by dahenley

Marc, during winter, what do you plan on doing with the RO tubing? I now it doesnt get too cold in winter, but last year with all the ice and stuff, do you think the cold will track up the line and freeze your water, or do you plan on connecting the drain back to the sewer and put a plug over the line to prevent water freeze.

Unknown at the moment. I'll decide later. I may put a Tee fitting with ball valves to decide where to send water based on current weather conditions.

This is something I have honestly thought about doing for a while, especially in these conditions.

Marc, during winter, what do you plan on doing with the RO tubing? I now it doesnt get too cold in winter, but last year with all the ice and stuff, do you think the cold will track up the line and freeze your water, or do you plan on connecting the drain back to the sewer and put a plug over the line to prevent water freeze.

Mike, when we are in a drought, the soil around our homes cracks and the houses shift. Walls crack, doors won't open, and last time I got a quote to fix the foundation they wanted $15,000. I can't afford that. Usually I run my sprinklers often to keep the ground moist and the lawn pretty, but we are under water restriction right now: I'm allowed to water Thursday and Sunday only, and any other time I'm running sprinklers there is a $2000 fine per incident.

We are allowed to hand-water anything we like, because they now no-one is going to stand out there all day doing that. Now hooking up soaker hoses around the house from the faucet isn't a fine-able offense, but I was thinking 750g was a lot of water to simply pipe down the drain over the 48 hours it takes to fill up the poly tank.

After about an hour or so, the water in Vat #1 dropped about 10" so I moved the soaker hose to the next spot. Vat #2 is slowly filling up, but I'm not sure if it is filling up faster than the soaker hose is using. I'll know more later. At least I'm doing something about the dry ground around my home.

Marc, very nice that your using the run off! Can you explain to me what drought conditions have to do with keeping the foundation moist?

Here at the store we use our RO/DI filters run off to fill tanks (~1000 Gallons) which are used for water changes on our freshwater system. Because here in Little Rock, our water is so soft, our run off TDS is about 30-40ppm. Once the tanks are full, they overflow first to a line that does constant water changes on the freshwater system. The remaining water overflow's to our Koi and Goldfish systems, and does a constant water change on them..
The only thing I would change, is to use the waste water from the sumps overflow to water plants, or our bog. This would how ever be a huge undertaking. Maybe the next go around.. We're also looking at solar heating for the water change tanks and Livestock systems and LED Lighting.

--Mike

Yes, that would work as well. Another way would be to lower a pump into the container with tubing so I could point it at the walls to rinse them from the top down. Gloves and eye protection would be necessary, and like you said it has to be able to drain out. I don't have a good nor easy way to do that at the moment but if I have to cut and replace stuff for that feature, I'll do it.

I've had the RO unit on for the past couple of hours to fill it up with about 10-15g of water, and just did a water test with the new pump. Zero leaks!

Marc, could you (in the future, when your not re-plumbing) just fill the tank with tap water (100+ gal) and just pour the acid in, and turn the circulation pump on. and let the circulation within remove the deposits, and then have a drain valve with a piece of vynal hose close, to point to the french drain.

or do you not think that it would clean the tank very good??

I'm about to take the saltwater can out for it's cleaning, and after reading this, I'm so thankful it fits through the door haha. It's amazing the crud lining you get from a little instant ocean!

Well, I had a feeling it was gonna be snug, but in this case even a new bottle of Astroglide wouldn't get that thing through the door's opening.

It wasn't terrible, but I like things clean as you know. After six months of use, it had built up some calcified stuff on the walls that was an eye-sore only to me. Getting it all out made me feel good, and cleaning it now before it had more time to cake up made the job easier, theoretically. It was a beating since I was trapped in the room, but I had to make the alterations to the plumbing for the Blowhole pump and the different lengths of tubing inside the vessel, which made this project more time consuming.

Wow, things ya don't think about during construction. The inside of the tank gets that dirty?

Screw the pictures, we want video of all the head scratching and container wrestling! Sorry to hear that the R and D department failed you you Marc. Any plans to widen the doorway?

Thanks for the link melev. I've actually been following the blog but have been busy with a move this weekend and week and hadn't caught the update. Here's hoping the lightning is a genetic mutation that can be reproduced!