Here in So. Calif, we have had drought conditions for several years, so now that we are having some rain, am saving every drop of rainwater I can. I now have a large barrel full, and more may be on the way - I hope!
Question: How long can I "safely" keep the barrel full of H2O? Without breeding mosquitos, worst case, or..?
Is it necessary to put some chlorine in, and if so, how much would be safe for the plants.
This may all be overkill; if we just don't get any more rain, it will get used up fast. Have been curious about this for some time, so turning to Your Wisdom
I had two 500 gallon holding tanks for rain water. They were fiberglass and I could see the water turning lovely shades of green as the summer progressed. Didn't hurt a thing. You're only using it to water your plants, right? I did toss in a few feeder gold fish every year as soon as the temp was above 50°. They are excellent, non toxic skeeter control. I never fed the fish and they thrived until I emptied the tanks in the fall before the hard freeze.
BTW, if you are looking for a very inexpensive holding tank check out septic tank companies. I got two 500 gallon septic tanks for $20 each. They had been cracked when delivered to this company so couldn't be used for the intended purpose but I just got a patch kit and fixed the cracks when I got them home. Worked great.
Indefinitely if you exclude mosquitos with a functional lid.
No, it may grow some algae if light gets in but that will not harm plants. There is no need to treat it like drinking water.
If by "barrel" you mean 50-100 gallons it will be of very limited use. If you want to support your garden rather than a few pot plants you will need a much bigger tank (1000 gal plus) and to reorganise your roof plumbing to fill it. Depending on the size and layout of your property, the soil and other considerations a ground tank (ie small dam) may be cheaper and more effective. This is quite a complex issue.
in your conditions you should be seriously looking into buying a rain water tank of substantial capacity, modern tanks are sealed so as only water gets in nothing else.
i have a tank and i use drums/barrels as well all mine are sealed ie.,. not open topped like many drums i see in pic's from the USA, so again no mosquito's can get in. there is a pic or 2 on our site showing our setup.
our rainwater tank is 25k litre capacity, which makes us sufficient in water in our drought.
On Thu, 12 Feb 2009 13:15:49 -0800, snipped-for-privacy@NoSpam.com wrote: snipped With peace and brightest of blessings,
len & bev
-- "Be Content With What You Have And May You Find Serenity and Tranquillity In A World That You May Not Understand."
Not specially. A small tank only has a head of water of one or two metres. Compare (say) with a quite modest irrigation pump that gives a head of 40m, big systems can be much more.
I was in the nw corner of Montana, Purcell Mtns, alt.5,700. It was very hot during the day in the summer and very long, cold winters. I made two trips getting the tanks home. One just fit in the bed of the pick-up. Had good grunt labor (my hunting buddies) waiting to unload and reposition the tanks. They weighed a couple hundred pounds each. I used a solar powered stock tank pump when I used the water. I had one tank collecting water off 'the shed' which was an old barn/garage building and one collected from the house. We didn't get much rain in the summer but when we did it would really pour and filled the tanks in a very short time but there was a lot of roof surface collecting water. In all the time I was there I only used the well to water my gardens a very few times. However I didn't use a sprinkler, it just wastes too much water. I also didn't water grass. All of my veggie beds where raised and the I covered the soil with black plastic and planted through it. That and keeping the gardens well supplied with compost every spring they really didn't need as much water as most. I also buried gallon milk jugs with a hole punched in the bottom next to tomatoes, peppers and squash so I watered deep and less often. The roots stayed deep and water didn't evaporate.
I just used a fiberglass patch kit from the hardware store. It wasn't pretty but worked well ;)
Google 'fiberglass septic tank' and you'll see lots of places. I'm sure you'll find one near you if you decide to check this out.
That keyed my interest in looking at some old digital photos of my 3 stage septic tank being installed here a few years ago. It was on a specialized truck with motorized winch. Entire septic tank is coated in concrete with flat top. Although small in relative size as far as septic tanks go, it was pretty big at 1500 gallons total.
I'm guessing you meant the company that made a septic tank from those individual tanks is where you got those 2 tanks.
They were two individual tanks, not even close to matching. Doubt if they were even made by the same company by the looks of them. These come in many shapes and sizes. No concrete is involved. I got them from a company that installed septic systems, not manufacture tanks. Do a little perusing of fiberglass septic tanks and it may become more clear to you.
About these septic tanks... When set up are these placed underground like a cistern, or left above ground for their beauty and all the neighbors to enjoy?
I am fortunate to have a spring-fed pond (about 7,000 gallons) that contantly runs into an underground overflow that spills into a small stream. It never gets stagnant and has thousands of fish that take care of the mosquitoes (read somewhere that a fish pond actually decreases mosquito populations). Typically we get July-August droughts and I take water from the pond to water the gardens. Since there is no way to easily separate the fish from the pond water, the plants get fed some fish along with the water. Maybe some day I'll install a hand pump in the vegetable garden.
Punctured tires are a hell of a lot cheaper too. But service stations sell hardly used repaired tires regularly for nearly the price of new. My neighbor got a flat last week on a trip back from Montreal and decided to buy a repaired hardly used tire on a rim to replace the stupid donut.... still paid $70 for a repaired tire and rim when it would have cost $70 for a new tire with no rim. She now has two repaired tires and no stupid donut... and she got lucky that the service station in the middle of the Adirondacks had a rim with repaired tire to fit. She did the smart thing, I wouldn't drive a car with a donut for a spare.
I doubt there is a ready supply of cracked fiberglass tanks for free. Just because someone claims to have acquired a couple in no way means everyone can. And actually fiberglass vessels are produced by layering fiberglasss cloth and resin over a form ... so anyone dealing in that market would repair a cracked tank better than new and sell it as new, because unless it were used to contain some sort of contaminants that couldn't be removed in fact it would be new, better than new. Brand new fiberglass hulled water craft accidently fracture in transport all the time, they are easily repaired and sold as new, a fiberglass patch, like a weld, is stronger than new. Corvette automobile bodies are very often damaged in transit, they are easily repaired and the patch is stronger than new. I have a very difficult time believing that a seller of fiberglass septic tanks would give them away rather than repair the cracks. Just because someone happened to be in the right place at the right time and got lucky doesn't mean everyone can rely on glomming onto cracked fiberglass tanks.
And I don't know why anyone would need more than 100 gallon tank to collect rain water for watering some plants around ones abode, and that's more of a head trip than a real money saver. Anyone who lives where they can keep say a 1000 gallon tank filled with rain water doesn't really need to be collecting rain water if it rains that much. This entire concept of collecting rain water in huge tanks where it hardly rains is really pretty silly... the point of diminishing returns is reached at about 100 gallons, probably more like a 55 gallon drum... begins to cost more to transfer and haul than to turn on the hose bib. When there's a need for large quantities of water for commercial purposes in arid climes they drill a well. No one is going to maintain a lawn in say Las Vegas with collected rain water no matter a 5,000 gallon tank, a lawn will drink up water in the desert faster than it rains.
I put the tanks up on 'cribs' built of some 4x4 beams salvaged when I tore down an old tractor shed. My closest neighbors were about 4 miles away so their yapping dogs, leaf blowers, music blasting from shitty outdoor speakers duct taped to their trailer and any comments on my 'projects' weren't really an issue. The tanks were on the backside of the barn and the back corner of the house and wasn't seen from windows or during casual meanderings about the 'estate' so I wasn't really worried about aesthetics. I also built a sort of lean-to roof over them so they wouldn't get the sun beating down on them. That was suggested by the guy I bought them from to keep them from breaking down from UVs or whatever. I drained them completely before winter set in since we had weather cold enough to freeze lakes thick enough to park a camper on while ice fishing. When I set them up I just drilled a hole at the bottom corner and put in a spigot. I just used a hole saw and seated the spigot with silicone. The tank was set so it was about 4 inches lower at the spigot end.
Here's just a thought. Since you have a good water source with the pond, albeit somewhat inconvenient, maybe you could pump from the pond when you need it to a water barrel placed a bit above ground level right in your garden. If you put a water barrel on a platform, had a hose attached to the bottom of the barrel you could water by gravity feed. The barrels sold as water barrels already have a spigot attached just for this purpose. If you don't have an electrical source for a pump a solar pump
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could bring the water from the pond to the barrel. A wire cage at the suction end of the pump hose would keep the fish out. You also might want to check with the local authorities to see if it's legal to pump from that pond if you decide to do something like this. There's all kinds of regulations about that, depending on where you live, even if the pond is on private property.
Yes, you are absolutely right Victoria, they are *very* strong. It's also not legal to install a 'damaged or repaired' fiberglass septic tank for it's originally intended purpose even if they are technically as good as new so there goes ol brooklyn1's flat tire theory. I only told about the salvaged septic tanks to suggest that people need to look around and see what's available to do the job. I found a very workable and relatively inexpensive solution to my water problem by doing a little thinking outside the box. When I saw "water barrels" selling for $75 a pop I figured there HAD to be a better way. Gardening, if done properly, is conducive to percolating and pondering solutions to problems. ;)
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