High Tide Aquatics

What do you guys do with your waste water?

nanocube-guy

nanocube-guy

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Hi guys, I just wonder who own an RO/Di unit and does something better with your waste water? I know waste water is a waste of water, I think the plants could get some use of the water that we don't need from out RO/DI unit. On RC, I have read that there are guys who store them in a big 20gallon garbage bin to water their plants with. Any of you guys have done that? The water is being waste out of the RO/DI are more than the water is produce, isn't that kind of stupid?
 
My line goes out to my lawn.

The fact that it wastes more water than it produces (efficiency of ~ 25%) isn't stupid, but rather a design compromise.
If you want more efficient, you can run straight DI, but then have the "efficiency" of recharging or resin waste.

Did you know that your lights on your tank are probably 15% or so efficient? The rest is heat energy waste ;)
 
-I does want my line run to plants, but I might have install longer line. I have these cool shape tree in front of my house that can be trim into a oval and I might run to that.
-I actually didn't know abut the light. What kind of energy is being waste?
 
Lets play a number game about light waste

Assume you have a "250" watt ballast that is 90% efficient and it drives a bulb at 250watts that is 15% efficient
(these numbers are realistic)

Use 250watts

Ballast draws 250/0.9=280watts and wastes 30watts
Bulb uses 250 watts and outputs 37.5watts of light and 212.5watts of heat

So...only 37.5 watts out of the 280watts of energy is light.
..the remaining 242.5watts is a room heater.
 
I run a line from my RO unit to my backyard, soon it's going to be to a storage bin, which is what I would suggest since it allows you to water when you want/need to water, I always have a habit of needing water made up right after it rains :D

The waste water is pretty much cleaner than the tap water that comes into your house, storing that much water to drink however is a bit much, but if you have a big bin to store it in you can use that waste water to wash laundry, and hell if you're pretty proficient you might be able to empty your water heater and get the water to go into there (though I wouldn't suggest that).
 
Cool info tony.

Mike, I didn't know that waste water is cleaner than tap, I never though of that, but yea, it's good for watering the plants since these days, everyone are scare of drought.
 
However the "waste" water is void of chlorine and chloramine, so things can now grow in it. This is only a concern if you plan on storing and drinking the waste water.

I'm sure that the first throught is "how can anything grow in it?!"....you'd be surprised! There are some types of bacteria that can live off of the trace "junk" which doesn't get filtered, plus additional "food" which can make it in by way of dust etc if the container isn't 100% sealed. Is this bacterial harmful? Not sure.
 
I have my RO/DI unit hooked up in my garage over my wash basin which is right next to my washer. I just run my waste line into my washer and use that water to wash my clothes.
 
Tony, you have a point, the water can be harmful if I were to use for plants that I will grow food are bad. However, we can use it for flowers and other type of plants.
 
I'd just pump everything to a main reservoir and use a pump and a hose to put back as much as you need into the washer.

And don't worry about using water of food plants, unless it's radioactive or there's some toxic man made chemicals in it, you won't get sick eating any of the fruits/veggies, bacteria isn't going to be an issue.
 
I run the cheapo "Tap Water Filter" from API. There's no waste water but I'm pretty damn sure it's not as good as removing impurities as some of these RO/DI filters with multiple chambers.
 
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